Health innovation for all | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Sunday
July 06, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
SUNDAY, JULY 06, 2025
Health innovation for all

Panorama

Mariana Mazzucato & Jayati Ghosh; Project Syndicate
11 December, 2021, 12:30 pm
Last modified: 11 December, 2021, 12:36 pm

Related News

  • Fitness coach shares 4 foods to avoid if you are in a calorie deficit and want to reduce belly fat
  • Dengue claims one more life; 358 hospitalised in 24hrs
  • Bangladesh to overcome dengue epidemic with joint efforts, says China
  • One dies from COVID-19 in 24 hrs
  • Dengue claims one more life; 386 hospitalised in 24hrs

Health innovation for all

In addition to prolonging the Covid-19 pandemic and threatening the economic recovery, the new Omicron variant is a reminder that our system for managing global health emergencies remains woefully inadequate

Mariana Mazzucato & Jayati Ghosh; Project Syndicate
11 December, 2021, 12:30 pm
Last modified: 11 December, 2021, 12:36 pm
Despite multiple technological breakthroughs in the fight to control Covid-19, twice as many people died from it in 2021 compared to 2020. Photo: Reuters
Despite multiple technological breakthroughs in the fight to control Covid-19, twice as many people died from it in 2021 compared to 2020. Photo: Reuters

Despite multiple technological breakthroughs in the fight to control Covid-19, twice as many people died from it in 2021 compared to 2020. The Omicron variant is a stark reminder that effective vaccines are merely the first step toward ending the pandemic. Until we establish a process to manufacture vaccines at scale and distribute them where they are needed, we will lack the collective capacity to curb this or any future pandemic.

The shameful inequity in global vaccine distribution shows that we cannot rely on monopolies, commercial imperatives, and charitable efforts alone if we are to achieve the World Health Organisation's goal of "Health for All." As the WHO's Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response concludes, we need a globally coordinated, end-to-end innovation system in which intellectual property (IP) rules and fiscal policies are designed to support collaboration between the public and private sectors. The quantity and quality of financing must be restructured around the overriding goal of delivering essential health technologies as a global common good.

Value in health innovation is created by many participants, including research institutions, corporations, governments, international organisations, philanthropies, scientists, and trial participants. The fruits of this collective labour should not be exclusively in the hands of pharmaceutical companies whose main priority is to maximise shareholder returns. This extractive model has prolonged the pandemic and undermined economic recovery.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

Value created collectively must be governed collectively. And Covid-19 vaccines should be regarded as "People's Vaccines," as many eminent scholars and political leaders have argued. These vaccines benefited from unprecedented public funding, yet they remain largely under the exclusive control of private monopolies.

A handful of wealthy countries have blocked a widely supported proposal at the World Trade Organisation to waive IP protections for pandemic-related technologies, effectively putting the interests of pharmaceutical corporations before global health equity and solidarity. We must ensure that future vaccines against the Omicron variant – developed using genetic sequencing data that South African researchers shared openly – will be accessible to all.

Jayati_Ghosh (L) and Mariana Mazzucato (R). Illustration: TBS
Jayati_Ghosh (L) and Mariana Mazzucato (R). Illustration: TBS

To that end, we cannot continue merely to correct market failures through donations, voluntary sharing mechanisms like the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), or restrictive voluntary licences. We must go beyond marginal fixes and imagine a new health innovation system, as outlined by the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All.

First and foremost, this means addressing current global inequalities in innovation capabilities and infrastructures by fostering local and regional innovation networks and capacity-building efforts that target low- and middle-income countries. Technology and know-how must be shared to correct for the historic disparities created by the blanket application of IP rights, which has systematically favoured those with existing technological capacity. We must promote open science, collective intelligence, and the sharing of public health data, while ensuring information is not used for extractive or disciplinary purposes.

Second, long-term strategic financing must be directed toward building end-to-end health innovation systems governed with the goal of providing common goods. Most health innovation is backed by extensive public investment – either directly or by de-risking private investment – from which the public should benefit. Public funding must come with conditionalities to guarantee wide availability, fair prices, transparency, and technology sharing. And because private finance also plays a critical role in health innovation, conditionalities, regulations, and incentives should be used to forge symbiotic public-private partnerships, and to align private investments with the goal of Health for All.

Third, critical health technologies must be considered part of a global commons rather than the exclusive right of private IP monopolies. Patents should cover only innovations that are fundamentally new and useful. To avoid the privatisation of research tools, processes, and technology platforms, patents should focus on downstream inventions, and they should be readily licensable, with commitments to sharing technology and know-how to facilitate follow-on innovation, as patent law originally intended. These changes call for a thorough revision of patent rules and their application. The current debate about the WTO IP waiver must be seen in this broader context.

Finally, pharmaceutical company boards and investors have a role to play in transforming this broken model. Just as investors demand action on climate change, so, too, can they demand that companies assign high priority to equitable access and broader technology sharing. They can also push for corporate governance models that share value fairly between all stakeholders, not just shareholders. This action could translate into a mandate to focus on public health needs during crises, and to limit or eschew stock buybacks (especially in the case of firms that benefit from publicly funded research).

We are running out of time. Countering the Covid-19 pandemic and future health crises will require adopting a holistic, global approach to governing health innovation. The goal must be to deliver timely and equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and essential supplies everywhere, not to protect monopoly profits.


Mariana Mazzucato is Professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London.

Jayati Ghosh is a professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.


Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Project Syndicate, and is published by special syndication arrangement

Features / Top News

health / Health and Safety / Health and hygiene / health sector

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Infographic: TBS
    Japanese loan rate hits record 2%, still remains cheaper than others
  • Photo: Collected
    Jamaat presses ahead with candidate rollout, announces aspirants for 293 JS seats
  • A quieter scene at Dhaka University’s central library on 29 June, with seats still unfilled—unlike earlier this year, when the space was overwhelmed by crowds of job aspirants preparing for competitive exams. Photo: Tahmidul Alam Jaeef
    No more long queues at DU Central Library. What changed?

MOST VIEWED

  • The release was jointly carried out by the Forest Department and the Chattogram Zoo authorities as part of an ongoing initiative to conserve wildlife and maintain ecological balance. Photo: Collected
    33 Python hatchlings born in Ctg zoo released into Hazarikhil sanctuary
  • File photo of a new NBR office in Agargaon, Dhaka. Photo: UNB
    NBR launches 'a-Chalan' for instant online tax payments
  • Customs bureaucracy: Luxury cars rot at Ctg port
    Customs bureaucracy: Luxury cars rot at Ctg port
  • Infograph: TBS
    How BB’s floating rate regime calms forex market
  • Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed talks to reporters in Brahmanbaria on Saturday, 5 July 2025. Photo: TBS
    Raising savings certificate interest rates will hurt banks: Finance adviser
  • Saleudh Zaman
    ‘We are dying’: Adverse policies drive most textile millers to edge, say industry leaders

Related News

  • Fitness coach shares 4 foods to avoid if you are in a calorie deficit and want to reduce belly fat
  • Dengue claims one more life; 358 hospitalised in 24hrs
  • Bangladesh to overcome dengue epidemic with joint efforts, says China
  • One dies from COVID-19 in 24 hrs
  • Dengue claims one more life; 386 hospitalised in 24hrs

Features

Students of different institutions protest demanding the reinstatement of the 2018 circular cancelling quotas in recruitment in government jobs. Photo: Mehedi Hasan

5 July 2024: Students announce class boycott amid growing protests

1d | Panorama
Contrary to long-held assumptions, Gen Z isn’t politically clueless — they understand both local and global politics well. Photo: TBS

A misreading of Gen Z’s ‘political disconnect’ set the stage for Hasina’s ouster

1d | Panorama
Graphics: TBS

How courier failures are undermining Bangladesh’s online perishables trade

1d | Panorama
The July Uprising saw people from all walks of life find themselves redrawing their relationship with politics. Photo: Mehedi Hasan

Red July: The political awakening of our urban middle class

2d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

After backing Israel, Iran’s self-styled crown prince loses support

After backing Israel, Iran’s self-styled crown prince loses support

3h | TBS World
Trump says he is about to raise tariffs as high as 70% on some countries

Trump says he is about to raise tariffs as high as 70% on some countries

14h | TBS World
Will political disputes delay the elections?

Will political disputes delay the elections?

15h | TBS Stories
Initiative to break the deadlock created by the US

Initiative to break the deadlock created by the US

15h | TBS World
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net