Global Cooperation on Vaccines Barely Exists — Here's a Way for the World To Work Together
The following is an excerpt of Asia Society and ASPI’s President Kevin Rudd’s op-ed originally published in TIME.
The lack of a coordinated international effort to contain COVID-19 was a failure of global governance that has tragically cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Fortunately, we now have a second chance to develop an effective and harmonized framework for vaccines — now, and for the inevitable next global wave of this pandemic, or the next one.
As things stand, global cooperation on vaccines barely exists. But these kinds of alliances — to create, distribute and apply vaccines for the world from day one — are the alliances of the future. To do this, we must draw on vast resources, existing expertise, and the most effective form of international medical collaboration that we can manage, for the sake of global survival. We cannot let people pay for vaccine competition with their lives. It’s that urgent, and that simple.
Thankfully, a model for the harmonized framework that I am talking about already exists.
In 2019, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched Project Orbis, a partnership with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, to facilitate faster patient access to innovative cancer therapies across many countries, resulting in increased efficiency through concurrent submission, sharing and review of data, and through standardizing pivotal clinical trials.
Project Orbis has already demonstrated remarkable outcomes. In its first year, there were 38 approvals of new oncology applications. Most recently, it helped bring a groundbreaking lung cancer drug, Sotorasib (marketed in the U.S. as Lumakras) to market in unprecedented time. For any of us who have ever lost a loved one to cancer, you will know what this means. And, for any of us who have been directly affected by COVID-19, you will know what this could mean.