The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) began expanding in 2023 from focusing on small‑molecule medicines to including biotherapeutics and mRNA vaccine manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries, aiming to improve access to cancer treatments and pandemic preparedness despite the more complex patent landscapes.

This shift toward biotherapeutics and mRNA technologies brings more patents through collaborative R&D, increasing the number of patent holders and patent families that the MPP must navigate to preserve access.

Findings show that royalty reductions under a package license outperform separate licensing, and that benefits to governments, hospitals, and patients grow as IP rights become more fragmented, underscoring the value of the MPP in strained global health funding contexts.

The MPP is a not-for-profit, launched in 2010 with UN support to boost access to essential medicines in LMICs by negotiating voluntary licenses and granting non-exclusive, geographically limited sublicenses to manufacturers, which lowers prices through competition and low royalties.

An economic assessment in Nature Biotechnology models the MPP as a joint subsidiary of participating patent holders, showing that voluntary pooling must yield profits at least as favorable as separate licensing; pooling can lower per‑unit royalties by internalizing complementarities and delivering greater gains to end buyers as IP fragmentation grows.

From 2020 to 2025, the MPP licensed 44 products from 22 originator companies and enabled 62.14 billion doses of treatment, including 286 million packs of a triple-drug HIV regimen, across 108 countries, benefiting nations such as South Africa, India, and Nigeria.

The MPP is evolving from a simple clearinghouse to a broader patent pool that bundles related technologies into single packages, boosting efficiency and access for complex products.

Supporting mRNA capabilities in LMICs could speed up vaccines for diseases like dengue, HPV-related cancers, and malaria, but this requires navigating a diverse IP landscape involving pharma firms, biotech firms, and universities, including challenges around lipid nanoparticles and mRNA synthesis.