Impact of COVID-19 on life sciences and mandatory vaccinations

Key legal issues regarding mandatory vaccinations and COVID-19’s impact on the life sciences industry have been outlined in this Pink Sheet article, authored by myself alongside New York associate Julie Kvedar and London trainee William Radcliffe.

The article addresses the pandemic’s broad impact on the life sciences industry, including:

• The redirection of industry efforts and resources towards pandemic response
• The reduced production and exportation of essential pharmaceuticals
• The healthcare access crisis for non-COVID patients
• Inconsistent, jurisdiction-specific travel restrictions, which have upended traditional on-site inspection and audit methods

The article also considers the legal frameworks applicable to vaccine mandates in key jurisdictions. Higher vaccination rates worldwide will help the life sciences sector return to a semblance of normality, and compulsory vaccination promises to be the most certain and fastest means of achieving this goal. However, mandatory vaccines also raise questions of medico-ethical principles of capacity and autonomy.

In a watershed moment, Austria recently became the first Western democracy to announce mandatory vaccination for all. Nonetheless, compulsory vaccination remains a legally and politically charged issue across jurisdictions, with the legality of such mandates varying considerably across the globe.