AstraZeneca e Brasil: estratégias utilizadas para lidar com as contradições globais entre compartilhamento de novas descobertas e a pressão da lógica de mercado

Abstract

The World Health Organization, in March 2020, confirmed that the planet was facing the COVID-19 pandemic. A virus found in China in December 2019, defined as a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, with high transmissibility, mutability and high mortality rate. Delicate context that took the entire population out of their comfort zone. Considering the need and urgency of an effective medication for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the large pharmaceutical industries, which have technological knowledge and inputs in the area, have dedicated themselves to research to develop an immunizer capable of containing the virus. Therefore, countries started to have bilateral agreements with their own industries so that they could have access to vaccines, as is the case of AstraZeneca and Brazil. Since the pharmaceutical industry dedicates its studies and researches to the elaboration of new drugs destined to offer quality of life to the needy patients, it is one of the most profitable sectors of the market and like all private companies, they aim for profit. The most used way by the pharmaceutical industries to guarantee the return on investments as a profit, is through intellectual property and patents. For the development of vaccines, very high investments are being made, in the same proportion the dedication of companies in research and tests. Through the analysis of the agreement established between AstraZeneca and Brazil, this work aims to identify the strategies used by the pharmaceutical industry to deal with the contradictions between sharing new discoveries and the pressure of business logic for profits.