The pandemic agreement is our opportunity to put people first.

More than five years after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, governments have reached a Global Pandemic Agreement . It took three years of negotiations at the World Health Organization (WHO), including a late-night vote at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, but it was finally formally adopted on May 20.

The agreement isn't perfect. Like any other international treaty, it is the result of a compromise that proved very difficult to achieve. But at a time when budget cuts are plunging global health initiatives into crisis and causing immense human suffering , this agreement is a lifeline for global solidarity and collaboration. And it is an opportunity to ensure that, the next time a pandemic threatens, the world doesn't make the same mistakes again.

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, charitable foundations, and global initiatives poured billions into the search for a vaccine. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars of the global economy depended on it. However, despite the heroic efforts of scientists, healthcare workers, and ordinary citizens in every country, inequality hampered the response to the pandemic. It was a tragedy that governments should have prevented.

Decades of research—and at least $17 billion—from publicly funded institutions were invested in coronavirus vaccines, and governments mobilized more than $100 billion to bring them to market. It was undoubtedly an extraordinary success, enabling safe and effective vaccines to be produced in record time. However, pharmaceutical companies prioritized markets in wealthy countries, which brought them greater profits. A more equitable distribution of vaccines could have saved approximately 1.3 million additional lives in 2021 alone .

For this reason, equity has been a guiding principle since the beginning of the pandemic agreement negotiations under the aegis of the WHO. The agreement aims to ensure that, when countries share the necessary data on pathogens to monitor potential pandemic threats, they also share in the benefits of any vaccine, medicine, or other product developed as a result.

This will create a more resilient global health system that aims to support patients and healthcare professionals around the world.

This agreement is a lifeline for global solidarity and collaboration.

Among the agreement's most significant provisions is the commitment by governments to establish specific conditions for access to public funding for research and development (R&D). By determining what governments and taxpayers can expect as a result of their investments in medical research, it ensures that the vital health tools generated through these public resources reach all those who need them.

This approach could completely change the public's relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, leveraging companies' research, development, and manufacturing capabilities while ensuring that publicly funded innovations primarily address public health needs. In this way, upon receiving taxpayer money, companies would contractually commit to the public to be transparent about their use of public funds and to ensure that everyone in need has affordable access to the final product.

At the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) , the nonprofit R&D organization I lead, our goal was to conduct urgent studies of a COVID-19 treatment specifically designed to provide outpatient care for people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the patent holder for a promising molecule we wanted to test wouldn't allow us to use it in our clinical trial, so we couldn't demonstrate that it would be appropriate for the needs of LMIC communities. Attaching conditions to recipients of public funding could remove barriers like this in the future by requiring them to commit to open scientific collaboration.

Another example that comes to mind is the Ebola vaccine . A publicly funded vaccine, whose efficacy had been confirmed in preliminary studies, remained shelved for years because the government that funded it was unwilling to continue supporting its development. When Ebola struck West Africa in 2014, the vaccine wasn't ready. It could have saved hundreds of lives.

Therefore, this access provision included in the agreement is a common-sense solution to a long-standing concern for the pharmaceutical industry (how to protect medical innovation while ensuring access for all), and could radically transform healthcare globally.

Global health is in a fragile situation, with uncertain funding and the risk of losing long-awaited gains.

The world is changing. From the ashes of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new R&D landscape in the pharmaceutical sector is emerging, with governments on every continent prioritizing the development of their capabilities and skills. If we apply a set of common principles that ensure everyone can access the results, we will all benefit.

However, the formal adoption of the pandemic agreement is only a first, albeit important, step in implementing this fundamental public health reform. Governments must now incorporate these provisions into their own national policies and guidelines to put the agreement's principles into practice. While the treaty ratification process could take years, governments can begin preparing these requirements for obtaining public funding today.

Global health is in a fragile situation, with uncertain funding and the risk of losing long-awaited gains. Vaccination rates have stagnated , and public skepticism toward science is growing across the board. The pandemic agreement itself has been the target of persistent disinformation attacks, falsely claiming that it will give the WHO the power to impose lockdowns, when in fact the agreement rules out any possibility for the WHO to impose measures on sovereign governments.

But if we establish guidelines to ensure that human life takes priority over narrow-minded national interests, we can restore confidence in global healthcare and cooperation. This will allow us to completely rethink a system that often fails to meet everyone's needs. And we can ensure that the development of life-saving vaccines and medicines is based on transparency and solidarity.

By adopting the pandemic agreement and implementing it worldwide, governments can ensure that the next time a pandemic strikes, no one is left behind, regardless of their geographic location or income level.