BioNTech Says Won’t Challenge Vaccine Copying in Africa

(Reuters) —
Vials with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

BioNTech’s co-founder and top executive said the vaccine maker has no plans to enforce its intellectual property rights should organizations in Africa strike out on their own to produce unauthorized versions of the company’s shot.

“Our goal is not to keep others from using our technology. Our goal is rather to actively see to it that our technology is available on all continents as safely and as widely as possible,” CEO Ugur Sahin told Reuters on Wednesday when asked whether he would pursue breaches of patents or patents pending in Africa.

The remarks come after the company, which developed the Western world’s most widely used COVID-19 shot with U.S. drugmaker Pfizer, mapped out a plan to enable African countries to produce its Comirnaty-branded shot under BioNTech’s supervision.

Sahin said the proprietary offshore production venture, dubbed Biontainer, was superior to hands-off data sharing because of the many pitfalls in quality maintenance.

Earlier during a press conference, the CEO pledged that novel cancer therapies BioNTech is working on will in the future be made available on the continent at affordable prices.

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