EFPIA and Vaccines Europe outline position on HERA

Article summary

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has, alongside Vaccines Europe (VE), published its position on the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA). EFPIA and VE highlight that trade has played an important role in response to coronavirus (COVID-19) and that it was vaccine development, enabled by strong rules on intellectual property (IP), that changed the course of the pandemic. The organisations state that HERA should maintain a robust IP framework that incentivises the development of medical countermeasures in a way that promotes public health objectives. In order to attract long-term investments in research and development projects that carry high risk, it will be crucial for HERA to provide funding at scale that has attractive funding rates. HERA also ought to be able to partner with individual entities rather than multi-partner consortia, according to EFPIA and VE. Additionally, EFPIA and VE emphasise that for seamless co-ordination, the pooling of knowledge and information exchange throughout...