In an ef­fort to com­bat ris­ing Covid-19 cas­es world­wide, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has struck a deal to li­cense sero­log­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy for an­ti­body test­ing and pro­vide it roy­al­ty-free to low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries in the hopes of boost­ing pro­duc­tion.

The WHO’s Covid-19 Tech­nol­o­gy Ac­cess Pool (C-TAP) and the Med­i­cines Patent Pool (MPP) fi­nal­ized the deal with the Span­ish Na­tion­al Re­search Coun­cil (CSIC), a pub­lic re­search in­sti­tute, on Tues­day. It’s the first test li­cense signed by the MPP, a Unit­ed Na­tions-backed pub­lic health or­ga­ni­za­tion, and in­clud­ed in the WHO pool, ac­cord­ing to the or­ga­ni­za­tions. It cov­ers all re­lat­ed patents and bi­o­log­i­cal ma­te­r­i­al nec­es­sary for man­u­fac­tur­ing the tests, and CSIC has agreed to pro­vide know-how and train­ing.

So far, CSIC’s tech­nol­o­gy has re­sult­ed in four an­ti­body tests, in­clud­ing one that can dis­tin­guish the im­mune re­sponse of Covid-in­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als from vac­ci­nat­ed in­di­vid­u­als.

“This is the kind of open and trans­par­ent li­cense we need to move the nee­dle on ac­cess dur­ing and af­ter the pan­dem­ic,” WHO di­rec­tor-gen­er­al Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus said in a state­ment. “I urge de­vel­op­ers of COVID-19 vac­cines, treat­ments and di­ag­nos­tics to fol­low this ex­am­ple and turn the tide on the pan­dem­ic and on the dev­as­tat­ing glob­al in­equity this pan­dem­ic has spot­light­ed.”

The move marks the lat­est in a string of ef­forts to con­tain the pan­dem­ic in low­er in­come coun­tries, where vac­cines are sore­ly need­ed. Back in Sep­tem­ber, the US gov­ern­ment said it would buy 500 mil­lion more dos­es of Pfiz­er’s vac­cine to do­nate to coun­tries in need. It al­so dumped more $200 mil­lion over the sum­mer in­to a South African man­u­fac­tur­ing plant to boost ac­cess to J&J’s vac­cine. How­ev­er, the New York Times re­port­ed in Au­gust that many of those dos­es had been ex­port­ed back to Eu­rope.

CSIC pres­i­dent Rosa Menén­dez em­pha­sized that tech­nol­o­gy re­lat­ed to Covid-19 should reach all coun­tries, adding: “In this sense, we would like this ac­tion by CSIC, of tak­ing part in the in­ter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tives of MPP and WHO, to be­come an ex­am­ple and a ref­er­ence for oth­er re­search or­ga­ni­za­tions in the world.”

US gov­ern­ment fights to up­hold work­place vac­cine man­date

The US gov­ern­ment is fight­ing to keep an Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Ad­min­is­tra­tion (OS­HA) rule in place that re­quires work­ers to be vac­ci­nat­ed for Covid-19 or test­ed week­ly, ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments.

The OS­HA rule, which was is­sued Nov. 5 and re­quires busi­ness­es with at least 100 em­ploy­ees to com­ply by ear­ly next year, was ini­tial­ly shot down in the US 5th Cir­cuit Court of Ap­peals in New Or­leans. OS­HA es­ti­mat­ed that the rule would save a min­i­mum of 6,500 lives and pre­vent over 250,000 hos­pi­tal­iza­tions over the next six months. But chal­lengers called the stan­dard “stag­ger­ing­ly over­board,” Reuters re­port­ed.

Now, the US gov­ern­ment is ask­ing a Sixth Cir­cuit fed­er­al ap­peals court to “im­me­di­ate­ly” lift the 5th Cir­cuit’s stay, ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments filed Tues­day.

“A court or­der block­ing the Stan­dard is a far greater af­front to sov­er­eign pre­rog­a­tives. Such an or­der would al­so threat­en deaths and hos­pi­tal­iza­tions that em­ploy­ers wish to pre­vent. Those in­ter­ests, and the gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ests in pro­tect­ing em­ploy­ees and em­ploy­ers while this case pro­ceeds, vast­ly out­weigh pe­ti­tion­ers’ as­sert­ed harm,” the mo­tion states.

The news comes as Covid-19 cas­es rise in the US, de­spite more than 82% of adults hav­ing got­ten at least one dose of a vac­cine. Last Fri­day, the FDA an­nounced that all adults who re­ceived two dos­es of an mR­NA Covid-19 vac­cine are now el­i­gi­ble for a boost­er shot.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

Amgen is the latest pharma company to appear on the radar of Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is investigating the way pharma companies are using subsidiaries in low- or zero-tax countries to lower their tax bills.

Like its peers Merck, AbbVie and Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyden notes how Amgen uses its Puerto Rico operations to consistently pay tax rates that are substantially lower than the U.S. corporate tax rate of 21%, with an effective tax rate of 10.7% in 2020 and 12.1% in 2021.

After controversially spinning out its talc liabilities and filing for bankruptcy in an attempt to settle 38,000 lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson is now changing up the formula for its baby powder products.

J&J is beginning the transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio, the pharma giant announced on Thursday — just months after a federal judge ruled in favor of its “Texas two-step” bankruptcy to settle allegations that its talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. An appeals court has since agreed to revisit that case.