The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented public health challenge: vaccinating the world as quickly as possible.

The drive to vaccinate the global population against COVID-19 is the largest vaccine campaign ever rolled out, characterised by complex production, distribution, access, and administration considerations.

To better understand this resulting dichotomy, this white paper answers the following five key questions, with a focus on applications related to innovation in the life sciences sector and the COVID-19 pandemic:

• What is intellectual property?
• Does intellectual property protection matter?
• Does the protection of intellectual property stimulate innovation?
• Does the protection of intellectual property impact citizens?
• What role can intellectual property protection play in the context of addressing both
• current and future pandemics?