Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he is having with patent holders of covid-19 vaccines on scaling up vaccination manufacturing, in country, in the global south.

Intellectual Property rights have underpinned innovators’ confidence to form over 300 partnerships - an unprecedented number - which have contributed to the production and dissemination of vaccines and other health products and technologies across the world.

Licensing and technology transfer partnerships have made real, positive impacts on vaccine delivery; examples include AstraZeneca and the Serum Institute of India, Pfizer-BioNTech and BIOVAC in South Africa.