WEBVTT

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(gentle music)

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- [Narrator] Health equity

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is no longer just a human-rights issue.

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Today, it's become a business imperative.

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Growing pressure from
investors, civil society,

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healthcare providers, and
patients is inspiring public-

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and private-sector organizations
to address inequities.

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(dramatic music)

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- Drugs are available in
high-income countries,

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drugs that save lives.

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Those same drugs are
not available or they're

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too expensive in low- and
middle-income countries,

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and so people are dying

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simply because they do not have access.

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The Medicines Patent Pool was
set up in 2010 by Unitaid.

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So, at the time, there were
new patented drugs for HIV,

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but they were too expensive

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for most low- and middle-income countries,

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and the concept was

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that if we could persuade
pharmaceutical companies

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to give us licenses on
their patented drugs,

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we could sublicense it
to generic manufacturers

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who could produce affordable
but high-quality versions.

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- Then this mandate
evolved in TB and Hep-C

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and other infectious disease spaces.

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Once COVID showed up, what happened is

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that the world recognized the mechanism

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of voluntary licensing through
MPP as an excellent way

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to have global access to the medicines.

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- So in 2021, this was set up

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as the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme,

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and the idea was to establish
vaccine manufacturing

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in a way that was sustainable

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to make sure that the companies
that receive the technology

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will be in a position to
respond to the next pandemic.

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The interest is in the platform

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that can then be used for other diseases.

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The key concept behind
this is empowerment,

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so what MPP are doing
is supporting the growth

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of this capability in low-
and middle-income countries.

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This program is different

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to anything really
that's been tried before.

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- [Narrator] The
Medicines Patent Pool and partners

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established a Technology
Transfer Programme

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for mRNA vaccines in South Africa.

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- You have to remember
that at the beginning

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it was just a concept and
it needed a lot of shaping,

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and BCG were extremely
helpful in doing that.

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BCG stepped into the gap

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and really provided the project management

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and a lot of the legs, if you like,

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to really get this off the ground.

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- Once it comes to put a structure

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and align stakeholders around the table

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and make them speak at one voice,

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this is one of the things I think BCG did

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that was strongly
contributing to the success

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of the mRNA program from scratch.

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- [Narrator] The program
successfully developed

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the first mRNA vaccine
candidate, AfriVac 2121.

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To date, all but one of
the 15 program partners

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received the introduction training

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for developing the mRNA
platform at country level.

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- What COVID has done is
really focus people's attention

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on the critical nature
of health inequalities

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and making sure that we address them.

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That means that there need to
be a lot more licenses given

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to us, in our opinion,
to ensure health equity.

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- This, of course,
increased the visibility

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of MPP in the world,

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and our mandate would then expand it,

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including the NCD space.

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- Licensing too often has been
thought of as a PR activity

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or a CSR activity,

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and so we're delighted
to be partnering with BCG

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to look at how we can
quantify the dollar value

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of doing licensing.

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If we can do this successfully,

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this could completely change
the mindset in industry,

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and that could revolutionize access.

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(dramatic music)