Ana Santos Rutschman (Villanova University), Technology Specificity and Equitable Access to Pharmaceuticals, Nw. J. Tech. and Intell. Prop. (forthcoming):
Current models of production of pharmaceuticals, particularly those dependent on intellectual property (and adjacent) protections, often contribute to the highly asymmetrical and inequitable distribution of resulting outputs. These problems are especially acute when emerging pathogens cause transnational public health crises in which there is concurrent demand for the same medicines in both lower- and higher-income countries, with populations in the Global South getting very limited timely access, if any, to preventatives and life-saving medicines—even when an outbreak disproportionately affects populations in these very countries.