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Trade Therapy: Deepening Cooperation to Strengthen Pandemic Defenses
42. However, the licenses have also been criticized for their restricted geographical coverage and supply, noting that more measures are required to ensure adequate access by all patients in LMICs. See the letter, “Re: Equitable access nirmatrelvir + ritonavir,” to Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla, March 16, 2022: https://healthgap.org/pfizerletter. 43. In March 2022, Moderna announced an updated patent pledge that it would never enforce patent rights for COVID-19–related technologies in 92 LMICs, including South Africa (Moderna 2022). 44. The reference to subsidy measures in this subsection of the report is based on the GTA’s characterization and without prejudice to whether any individual measure discussed is a “subsidy” within the meaning of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. 45. In 79 cases, nonstandard forms of government support were provided, often in conjunction with a government procurement contract. 46. For example, Chile and Ukraine have created interactive business intelligence (BI) tools and databases for government procurement related to the COVID-19 pandemic. See, Chile BI: Microsoft Power BI and Ukraine BI: https://ti-ukraine.org/en/news/ti-ukraine-presents-tool-for -covid-19-procurement-analysis/. 47. In addition, the European Commission, through its Directorate-General for Competition, indicated that it stood ready to issue “comfort” letters to private companies to increase the degree of legal certainty as regards compliance with competition laws (EC 2020a). 48. See, for example, the UK’s guidance on merger assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic (United Kingdom, CMA 2020). For more about the possible effects of the pandemic on merger reviews, see OECD (2020a).
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