European legal issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic:
regulatory, intellectual property, contract and competition law
relevant to cell and gene therapy products.
Cell & Gene Therapy Insights 2021; 7(1), 35-43
DOI: 10.18609/cgti.2021.011
INTRODUCTION
On 30 January 2020, the Director-General of the World Health
Organisation (WHO) declared the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak a public
health emergency of international concern 1. At the
time, there were 98 reported cases in 18 countries outside China
and no deaths outside China. By 11 March 2020, the WHO declared
COVID-19 a global pandemic with 118,000 reported cases in 114
countries and over 4,000 deaths 2. As at 14 January
2021, there were over 91 million global confirmed cases of
COVID-19, including over 1.9 million deaths reported to the
WHO 3. The speed and impact of this pandemic has been
unprecedented. In this article, we consider some of the legal
challenges and considerations that have arisen during the
