Bharat Biotech adds ICMR as co-owner of Covid-19 vaccine patent

New Delhi: India’s leading vaccine maker, Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) has added the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) as a co-owner of the Covid vaccine patent. The company’s original patent filing for Covaxin hadn’t given any credit to ICMR.

In a statement, Bharat Biotech termed the omission as unintentional while pointing out the circumstances at the time of filing the patent that led to the mistake on its part.

“Bharat Biotech was developing the covid-19 vaccine as a top priority to ensure its availability at the earliest. It was faced with multiple challenges as all organizations were in a rush to develop vaccines and file the appropriate patents, prior to any other entity or prior to any data being published in journals. The covid vaccine application was filed in above circumstances and since BBIL-ICMR agreement copy, being a confidential document, was not accessible. Hence ICMR was not included in the original application. Though this was purely unintentional, such mistakes are not uncommon for the Patent office therefore Patent Law provides provisions to rectify such mistakes,” read the statement.

The company is in the process of preparing necessary legal documents for rectifying what it called an inadvertent error. It will file those documents in Patent office as soon as those are ready and signed. These actions are in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between ICMR-NIV Pune and BBIL for joint development of COVID-19 vaccine in April 2020.

In the statement, Bharat Biotech emphasized its respect for ICMR and expressed appreciation for the apex biomedical research body for their continuous support on various projects.