This chapter critically evaluates, from the standpoint of the capability approach and the human development paradigm, the reliance on market-driven forces and mechanisms in the vaccine development and distribution pillar of ACT-A (COVAX), and the significance of complementary (or supplementary) developments such as the establishment of mRNA technology transfer hubs and the waiver of certain provisions of the international intellectual property (IP) regime. In hope of regaining some ground lost in global health equity, this chapter highlights the need to appropriately situate IP rights, not by maintaining the status quo but to advance deeper relationality in terms of the technological capability of health systems, particularly those of the "Global South."

As much as COVID-19 illustrates the shortcomings of our siloed medical and scientific professions, it also represents an opportunity to rethink and reorganize scientific research infrastructure. COVID-19 has become a scientific “nucleating event” of sorts: forcing researchers from many specialties into fragile but promising forms of collaboration around a shared – and pressing – problem, and giving rise to multiple infrastructures to facilitate such collaboration.This chapter argues that forging sustainable cross-cutting collaborations will require ongoing policy action along three axes: (1) building information-sharing infrastructure; (2) creating cross-disciplinary teams; and (3) countering anti-innovation norms.