Business Insider: Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic senators demand to know how US pharmaceutical companies plan to share vaccine technology as COVID-19 devastates India

In the next few weeks, more than half of Americans will have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. In much of the developing world, if current trends hold, people will be lucky to get a shot by 2022 — all the more reason, a group of US senators say, that pharmaceutical companies should be sharing their know-how and hastening the end to this global health crisis.

Sharing intellectual property, "such as vaccine recipes and manufacturing information... could drastically expand vaccine development and access," states a letter to Pfizer, sent Wednesday and signed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Edward Markey, Tammy Baldwin, Jeff Merkley, and Christopher Murphy, all Democrats.

In their letter, the lawmakers ask the pharmaceutical giant whether it has shared any of its proprietary knowledge with a group set up by the World Trade Organization for that purpose — and, specifically, whether it plans to partner with any companies in India to produce its highly effective mRNA vaccine.

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