The World Health Organisation has opposed a Covid-19 vaccine developed by a Canadian company part-owned by Philip Morris International because of its links to the tobacco industry.
Medicago is developing the vaccine, Covifenz, in partnership with the British drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline and wanted it to be listed for emergency use, a process that would accelerate access globally.
However, the health organisation has rejected the approach “because of the linkage with the tobacco industry and WHO’s strict policy on not engaging with companies that promote the tobacco industry”, a spokesman said. He said it had informed Medicago of its decision.
Philip Morris, one of the world’s largest tobacco groups and the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, owns a 21 per cent stake in Medicago and has helped fund development of the vaccine.
It was approved by Canada last month, becoming the world’s first plant-based vaccination authorised against the coronavirus.
Advertisement
Medicago reached an agreement in October 2020 to supply the Canadian government with up to 76 million doses and to receive C$173 million in funding for research and development and the construction of a manufacturing facility in Quebec City.
Philip Morris bought Vectura, a British respiratory drugs company, last year for £1 billion in a deal that triggered a backlash from public health groups.
Andrew Rowell, a senior research fellow at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, said: “When the world’s biggest cigarette company bought a stake in Medicago, it created conflicts of interest regarding public health — tobacco kills more than eight million people a year.”
Takashi Nagao, chief executive of Medicago, said that it had “not received any official communication from the WHO to date”.
He said: “It is our understanding that this decision is linked to Medicago’s minority shareholder and not the demonstrated safety and efficacy profile of our Covid-19 vaccine.”
Advertisement
Medicago’s majority shareholder is Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, a Japanese company, which owns 79 per cent.
A spokesman for GSK, whose portfolio of medicines includes respiratory treatments and Nicorette, a nicotine addiction brand, declined to comment.
GSK is believed to have partnered with Medicago, despite its tobacco links, because its technology offered an opportunity to help deliver a vaccine to fight Covid-19.
A spokesman for Philip Morris said that the health body’s assertion was “extremely disturbing and diametrically opposed to their repeated calls to urgently accelerate vaccination globally”.
“Emergency use authorisation of a Covid-19 vaccine has absolutely nothing to do with tobacco control,” the spokesman said. “WHO policies should focus on accelerating medical progress and innovation, rather than preventing patients reaching proven medicines in the name of punishing the tobacco industry.”
