May 7 Quick Takes: Bourla pushes back against IP waiver; plus Sinopharm, Galapagos, bluebird and more

In the wake of the Biden administration’s decision to support a WTO waiver of IP protections for COVID-19 vaccines, which sent vaccine developer shares down earlier this week, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla issued an open letter arguing that such a waiver threatens to disrupt the supply of raw materials for vaccines and disincentivizes risk-taking by smaller biotechs that fund-raise on the premise of IP protection.  

An emergency use listing by the World Health Organization for an inactivated virus vaccine from China National Pharmaceutical Group Corp. (Sinopharm) will allow many countries to expedite their approval processes to import and administer the COVID-19 vaccine. The listing is a prerequisite to supply COVID-19 vaccines to the COVAX facility, a global mechanism for pooled procurement and distribution. ...