Intellectual Property and Competition Law in the Pharmaceutical Sector during the covid-19 Pandemic

The covid 19 pandemic demonstrated that public policies related to intellectual property and competition law were not adequate or sufficiently articulated to allow timely access to vaccines in an equitable manner, due to distortions in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of covid-19 vaccines when they were available during the pandemic. This research aims to analyze, from a legal perspective, whether the observed problems originate in an inadequate application of intellectual property legislation and its relationship with other public policies related to competition, or, eventually, in the abusive exercise of such rights, which, as a consequence, would distort the process of competition in national and regional markets.