Experience shows that voluntary technology transfers are an effective way to cultivate transfer of manufacturing technology as well as other forms of acquired expertise.

To make sure technology transfers achieve their goal, it’s essential to understand their evolving landscape, the factors that enable success, and how different stakeholders can work together.

Creating the right conditions for the transfer of technology is an important consideration for all countries at all income levels. Many multilateral organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, have a role to play.

We engage with these organizations and governments to support the development of policies that foster the right framework for voluntary tech transfer agreements.

Technology transfer has been fundamental to the global pharmaceutical industry’s ability to rapidly scale up production of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

In the first year of COVID-19 vaccines, there were over 380 manufacturing and production deals worldwide. Around 75% of these involved some sort of technology transfer.

For example, Pfizer and BioNTech successfully developed a promising mRNA vaccine for use against COVID-19 in March 2020, taking less than a year. Moderna and Lonza joined forces to support drug substance manufacturing for the global supply chain of their COVID-19 vaccine.

With COVID-19 treatments, biopharmaceutical companies have entered 138 voluntary manufacturing arrangements with partners across the world. Over 92% collaborations involved technology transfer, and 43 of these came within the first year of the pandemic.

The transfer of pharmaceutical technology and R&D typically requires far more than sharing a “recipe” or building a bricks-and-mortar factory.

Given the complex nature of technology transfer, simply having an agreement to transfer technology does not allow for it to take place.

An effective technology transfer relies on several outside factors and on trade policies that can sometimes present obstacles, such as those we faced in developing COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.

Challenges include trade restrictions on upstream supply of raw materials, skilled workforce, supply chains, viable partners, cost, and method of distribution.

To overcome these, countries that receive technology transfers are encouraged to prioritize technology intensive policies and the innovation system that sustains it as a long-term objective for the nation.