How patents can serve the common good

The relationship between intellectual property (IP) and access to the fruits of science has always been tumultuous. The unequal distribution of messenger RNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic pitted patent holders against advocates of access to medicines in the latest confirmation of this truism.

In global health, rationing costs lives. One model estimates that more equitable access to COVID vaccines could have prevented around 1.3 million deaths worldwide.

But the pandemic also gave rise to a collaborative spirit, far from the protectionism that dominated the headlines. Hundreds of scientists in sudden lockdowns spontaneously took to social media to crowdsource the development of new antivirals to treat the disease. The results of their endeavors not only exemplify the potential of open science but also open the perspective for new ways of managing patent rights that favor, instead of hinder, access to medicines.

Calling ourselves the Moonshot initiative, these researchers shared a vision to develop a safe, globally affordable, not-for-profit oral treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Our goal was to identify new molecules that could block infection and develop pills that could go “straight to generic.” Instead of generating revenue protected by patents and other forms of IP, any new medicine would be available to everyone and accessible at the lowest sustainable price.

When we called for medicinal chemists worldwide to submit designs of molecules with potential to inhibit the virus, we expected a few hundred submissions. We got more than 18,000. Social media allowed us to share progress in real time with the widest possible community of researchers. Artificial intelligence enabled us to work faster on the molecular designs. Funding from Wellcome helped us test our best candidates in the lab.

Open drug discovery efforts are usually slow, but one of our researchers described our efforts as working on an express train on tracks being laid down as we go.

And it worked. A number of broad-spectrum antivirals—potential medicines that could work against SARS-COV-2 and related viruses—were identified. The safety and efficacy of the most-promising candidates were tested in preclinical studies and one, DNDI-6510, progressed to advanced toxicology and pharmacokinetics studies.

But when we approached manufacturers and donors with our open-science compound, we found no one willing to invest in its further development. One common concern prevailed among them: With everything openly published in real time, and with no patent, we had no control. Anyone could file a patent of their own covering additional aspects of the formulation and commercialize it exclusively. The results of our open collaborative efforts could easily be privatized, and our vision of an affordable and accessible drug would be moot.

As it happens, DNDI-6510 ended up failing later preclinical studies—attrition that is all too common at this most risky stage of drug development. But the Moonshot compound was the starting point for work undertaken by a new coalition called the ASAP consortium—itself led by many Moonshot researchers and funded by the US National Institutes of Health. The structure of a second compound developed by ASAP researchers, ASAP-0017445, and with potent activity against MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, and other viruses from the same viral family, was recently disclosed at the American Chemical Society Spring 2025 meeting in San Diego.

Together with our partners in the ASAP consortium, we have released the structure of our broad-spectrum antiviral molecule in the public domain, so any medicinal chemist on the planet can take it, improve it, and put our research data to the most optimal use. In this we stay true to Moonshot’s open-science ethos, bringing the best minds together and breaking down silos that hamper scientific innovation.

So how did we balance this open-innovation approach with the need to prevent any confiscation by private interests?

We chose a middle way. We submitted a “minimally defensive, maximally permissive” patent. Binding safeguards and commitments prevent any abuse of our shared intellectual property and will frame the development and commercialization of any future medicine stemming from this work. All ASAP partners are contractually obliged to grant future licenses to manufacture and market this potential medicine on a nonexclusive basis, thus allowing simultaneous production by multiple drugmakers. This lets us keep leverage with potential industry partners and donors while assuring that our future antiviral will be available at the lowest sustainable price, in sufficient quantities, everywhere, and fast.

This approach to nonexclusive licenses focusing on access has successfully demonstrated its use for multiple drugs and diseases. The Medicines Patent Pool, for example, has applied similar strategies to deliver medicines that have saved millions of lives.

But what is new here is that we have anticipated these needs from the very outset of the R&D process. We have built in provisions to ensure affordability and availability for all countries, regardless of their development status. We are piloting a blueprint for securing worldwide access based on an open-licensing approach to patents. We use patents to create the best possible conditions for equitable access.

Realizing the full potential of ASAP-0017445 depends on securing the necessary funding to advance its development into clinical studies. More than an opportunity, this is an imperative—we need broad-spectrum antivirals in our toolbox before the next pandemic hits. More fundamentally, this is also a chance to demonstrate that patents, when well leveraged, cannot just stimulate innovation but also serve the common good.

Ed Griffen is a medicinal chemist and technical director at the drug discovery organization MedChemica.

Pascale Boulet is a lawyer and intellectual property and access leader at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, a nonprofit medical research organization.

Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of C&EN or the American Chemical Society.

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