Exclusive: big pharma rejected EU plan to fast-track vaccines in 2017
Worlds top drug firms turned down proposals for work on pathogens like coronavirus
Daniel Boffey in Brussels
Mon 25 May 2020 00.00 EDT
The worlds largest pharmaceutical companies rejected an EU proposal three years ago to work on fast-tracking vaccines for pathogens like coronavirus to allow them to be developed before an outbreak, the Guardian can reveal.
The plan to speed up the development and approval of vaccines was put forward by European commission representatives sitting on the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) a public-private partnership whose function is to back cutting-edge research in Europe but it was rejected by industry partners on the body.
The commissions argument had been that the research could facilitate the development and regulatory approval of vaccines against priority pathogens, to the extent possible before an actual outbreak occurs. The pharmaceutical companies on the IMI, however, did not take up the idea.
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The IMIs governing board is made up of commission officials and representatives of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries (EFPIA), whose members include some of the biggest names in the sector, among them GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/exclusive-big-pharma-rejected-eu-plan-to-fast-track-vaccines-in-2017