Summary

  • The treaty targets rapid WHO access to 20% of a participating manufacturer’s real-time production of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for a pandemic pathogen; at least 10% is a donation.
  • The target sits inside a system whose annex, manufacturer contracts, data rules and benefit terms remain under negotiation.

Twenty per cent looks like a delivery plan. It is one number in a machine whose parts have to start together.

The World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement in May 2025. Article 12 created the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System, or PABS. It ties two movements together: countries and other participants share pathogen materials and sequence information; the system shares benefits from their use. The agreement says every PABS element must come into operation simultaneously.

That sentence carries more weight than the headline percentage. The simultaneous-operation rule binds sample and sequence access to benefit-sharing. A system that opens one side while leaving the other unwritten would break the agreement’s design.

A target with a trigger

Article 12.6 sets the 20% target for a specific event: a pandemic emergency determined under Article 12 of the International Health Regulations. It applies to a participating manufacturer’s real-time production of safe, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for the pathogen causing that emergency. Only products for the pathogen that triggered the emergency enter the calculation.

At least 10% of that production is to be made available to WHO as a donation. The remaining share is reserved at affordable prices, with flexibility based on the nature and capacity of each participating manufacturer. Distribution is based on public-health risk and need, with particular attention to developing countries. The treaty calls for legally binding contracts between WHO and participating manufacturers to carry those commitments.

That leaves a chain of decisions between the number and a shipment: which manufacturers qualify, when their obligations begin, how available production is measured, what “affordable” means in the contract, and how WHO matches supply to assessed need. Article 12 assigns the annex the job of defining the system’s terms, legal nature and operating dimensions. The manufacturer definition is also left to that instrument.

Two emergencies, two sets of terms

The treaty distinguishes a public-health emergency of international concern from a pandemic emergency. Article 12.7 requires the PABS instrument to include benefit-sharing provisions for the former, including options for access to products. It does not simply apply the fixed 20% pandemic-emergency target to every public-health emergency.

The draft annex text transmitted to the 2026 World Health Assembly shows why the distinction matters. The on-screen text was dated 30 April and was explicitly not final agreed text. For product access during a PHEIC, it displayed competing formulations: one set of brackets reserved at least 20% of real-time production or inventory, with alternatives for 8% or 10% free of charge and the remainder at not-for-profit prices; other options used different supply commitments. The brackets show which formulas negotiators had left open on 30 April.

The contract sits between data and medicine

Pathogen sequence information can move across borders in a file. A vaccine, treatment or diagnostic needs production capacity, approval, inputs and a route to delivery. One institution cannot command all of those pieces into place. The agreement distributes the work: states and the WHO system set the access framework; manufacturers sign contracts and supply products; WHO coordinates and allocates products by risk and need; national governments align relevant domestic rules.

The April draft exposed open questions across that chain. It offered competing definitions for pathogens with pandemic potential and for participating manufacturers. It also showed alternatives for WHO-recognized sequence databases, public reporting of contracts and contributions, and how commercial users of PABS material would share benefits. Those choices determine who has a duty, who can verify performance and what information the public can inspect.

The eighth intergovernmental working-group meeting met in September. Its official report records negotiations on access to materials and sequence information, definitions and governance. The report says the draft-text agenda item was held in closed session for working-group members; relevant stakeholders joined dedicated sessions for progress updates and focused discussion. The WHO’s meeting release described the talks as advancing while saying further work remained.

Geneva gets the next draft

On 12 October, the UN General Assembly adopted a political declaration calling for timely completion of the PABS annex so the Agreement could proceed to signature and ratification. The negotiators still have to write the contract terms.

The ninth working-group meeting runs from 2 to 13 November. Its provisional agenda puts the draft annex and next steps in the room. The draft programme schedules sections on system operation, access, benefit-sharing, governance and definitions. The WHO meeting page says the outcome is due for consideration at the Eightieth World Health Assembly in May 2027.

The remaining public gap is concrete: the negotiating text has not settled the manufacturer definition, the PHEIC benefit formula or the contract terms that turn the 20% target into an obligation. The next version of the annex can change that assessment by showing the agreed trigger, measurable production basis, contract template and enforcement route.

A percentage can fit in a communiqué. The contract has to name the pathogen, the manufacturer, the product, the quantity and the moment supply is due. Until those parts line up, the 20% target is a number waiting for its operating system.

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