scarce, precious fluids

The U.S. has bought nearly the entire global [!] supply of the antiviral drug remdesivir, the only treatment licensed to treat COVID-19, as the nation continues to experience surging cases of coronavirus.
[...]
The Trump administration announced this week the U.S. struck an agreement with Gilead to secure more than 500,000 treatment courses of the drug for American hospitals [!] through September.
[...]
Ohid Yaqub, a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex, called it disappointing news.

"It so clearly signals an unwillingness to cooperate with other countries and the chilling effect this has on international agreements about intellectual property rights," Yaqub said, according to the Associated Press [!].

< wipes tears >

[Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow at Liverpool University] told The Guardian that the UK could get access to remdesivir through a compulsory license, which overrides the intellectual property rights of the company. This would allow the UK to purchase from generic companies in Bangladesh or India where Gilead's patent is not recognized.

Gilead, June 29 price sheet

In the developing world, where healthcare resources, infrastructure and economics are so different, we have entered into agreements with generic manufacturers to deliver treatment at a substantially lower cost.

Mystery of Value Added to 79 rupees per "vial"

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.