Biopharmaceutical Financialization and Public Funding of Medical Countermeasures (MCMs) in Canada During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Analysing the Canadian government's efforts to support the development of COVID-19 "medical countermeasures" (MCMs), this article seeks insights into political economy as a driver of pandemic response. We explore whether Canadian public funding policy during the pandemic involved departures from established practices of financialisation in biopharmaceutical research and development (R&D), including the dominance of private sector involvement in an intellectual property (IP) intensive approach to innovation underscoring profit, and governance opacity.

Methods: We interrogate public funding for MCMs by analyzing how much the Government of Canada (GoC) spent, how those funds were allocated, on what terms, and to whom.