Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how South-South globalisation through both India, especially, and China have played key roles in increasing access to pharmaceuticals in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paper long abstract:

The Covid-19 pandemic and the search for appropriate treatments and vaccines has led to intense focus on the pharmaceutical industry for accessing medicines for treatment and vaccines to prevent infection. This paper explores how responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are linked to underlying economic geographies of pharmaceutical production. The pandemic has exposed pharmaceutical insecurities in the global North and has involved nationalist responses to scramble for drugs and especially vaccines. South-South linkages continue to play a key role in the pharmaceutical industry, including in increasing access to treatments and vaccines to many people in low and middle-income countries. The roles of both India and China, in particular, are demonstrated to be especially influential in the pandemic response, in ways which reinforce the significance of South-South dynamics within the pharmaceutical industry.