(National Pulse) Pharmaceutical giants including Pfizer and Moderna are refusing to share data and technology from their COVID-19 vaccines with researchers studying alternative treatments for the virus.
The conflict for researchers who are not affiliated with major pharmaceutical companies that manufactured a COVID-19 vaccine is a result of Pfizer and Moderna owning the patents for the current vaccines. Researchers, therefore, have to receive the companies’ permissions to use the vaccines for research into products like nasal or pan-coronavirus vaccines.
Pfizer and Moderna are refusing to share the data, however. Though the decision to withhold COVID-19 vaccine data and information from researchers is legal, it complicates the ability for progress to be made.
Yale University virologist and immunologist Akiko Iwasaki designed a study of nasal vaccines against COVID-19, which she believes would confer better protection against infection and transmission than shots alone. The most accurate version of the study would have been conducted on subjects that have already received ay initial vaccine series, as this would reflect real-world scenarios.
Despite asking Pfizer about the possibility of obtaining some vaccine to use in her study of nasal treatments, she has not received any from the company.
“In order for us to develop a better vaccine, we need a comparator. For that reason, everyone who’s doing research in this area is in the same boat, we don’t have access to do a comparison,” Iwasaki said.
