Is Canada patent deal obstructing Ebola vaccine development?

A decade ago, Canadian Government scientists invented a vaccine against Ebola virus (VSV-ZEBOV).1 That vaccine is based on a live attenuated vesicular stomatitis virus, and has several known advantages over the other vaccine candidates in clinical trials: first, in animals one inoculation suffices to confer immunity against lethal virus exposure, without a booster inoculation; second, the vaccine might work prophylactically if administered quickly after exposure; and third, it is replication-competent and therefore likely to be easy to manufacture quickly in large scale.2 Arguably, all this makes Canada\'s vaccine the most promising candidate for present circumstances.

However, rather than put this invention in the public domain, Canada\'s Minister of Health applied to patent the vaccine.3 Canada subsequently granted Bioprotection Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of NewLink Genetics, a \"sole, worldwide, revocable and royalty-bearing license\" to develop and commercialise the vaccine \"for the maximum commercial return to the Company and Canada\".4 This profit-driven arrangement does not put public health first.