Press Photos © Jess Hurd/GlobalJusticeNow Global Justice Now and The People’s Vaccine campaigning for global vaccine equality, AstraZeneca, Cambridge.

Activists have blocked the entrance to AstraZeneca’s Cambridge headquarters and hung a banner from the building demanding a People’s Vaccine.

A banner has also been hung from AstraZeneca Macclesfield site and protestors are demonstrating outside Oxford University.

The direct action happened before a demonstration organised by Global Justice Now demanding AstraZeneca openly license its  Covid-19 vaccine and commit to sharing technology and know-how with the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Protestors are demanding the company openly license its Covid-19 vaccine and commit to sharing technology and know-how with the World Health Organisation (WHO). They are also calling on Oxford University to commit to making all of its future medical innovations open-licenced.

The WHO established the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) early on in the pandemic to facilitate the sharing of technology and knowhow for vaccines and treatments, but pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca have so far refused to join the programme.

An estimated 97% of funding for AstraZeneca’s vaccine came from public sources, including governments and charitable trusts. The company paid out £3.6bn in dividends and share buybacks in 2020 and paid CEO Pascal Soriot £15.4m. This year, Soriot could be paid a bonus of between £2.1m and £12m,

Oxford University’s stated policy is to openly license its innovations  and said any vaccine it developed would be open to qualified manufacturers to produce without paying royalties, but the University deviated from this as it entered an exclusive licensing agreement with AstraZeneca.

The price promise does not bind AstraZeneca to charge non-profit pricing until the WHO declares the end of the pandemic. The company is able to declare the pandemic “over” and start charging profit prices as soon as July 2021.

Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now, said:

“It is simply shameful that Big Pharma companies like AstraZeneca refuse to openly share the vaccine knowledge and technology they control.

“It’s no wonder that people are angry and we applaud those who engaged in civil disobedience today to protest against this vaccine apartheid, in which our own government is also complicit.

“That these young activists are willing to put themselves at risk like this should shake company executives, who seem more concerned with trying to add millions of pounds to their already whopping salaries today than waive their patents and ramp up production.

“We will not be silent in the face of this injustice and today’s action is surely a sign of things to come unless Big Pharma immediately gives up its monopolies and the British government stops putting corporate profits ahead of the lives of millions around the globe.”

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