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In a notable bid to widen global access to Covid-19 medical products, the National Institutes of Health agreed to license nearly a dozen technologies to a World Health Organization program created to share information for developing drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

The licenses will be provided to the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP, which the WHO launched two years ago as the pandemic erupted. The goal of the program is to collect patent rights, regulatory test data, and other information that can eventually be used to provide medical products to low and middle-income countries.

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“I thank NIH for its offer of innovative therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostic methods for Covid-19,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Voluntary sharing of technologies through non-exclusive agreements will not only help us put the pandemic behind us; it will also empower low- and middle-income countries to produce their own medical products and achieve equitable access.”

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