What’s left to tackle in the PABS talks? As the clock ran out, and then was extended for another year, on negotiations over the Pandemic Agreement’s Annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS), the diplomacy and the nitty-gritty of the issues faced were deeply linked This edition of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre focuses on both, while noting that negotiators’ increased understanding of the technical issues may help pave the way for resolving key sticking points in future rounds of talks.  

On the side of the nitty-gritty, a perennial challenge is the sheer complexity, as Suerie Moon, the Global Health Centre’s Co-Director, writes in her opening article of this four-part Snapshot series: “What has been achieved and what’s left to tackle in the PABS talks?”

One hopeful point of progress, however, is the emerging, common understanding of how genetic databases and related systems work – as well as how the proposed  WHO-coordinated laboratory networks and WHO-recognized sequence databases could play a key role. This has given negotiators a much more solid basis for actually making proposals and finding potential points of compromise.

Meanwhile, the recent outbreaks of hantavirus and Ebola Bundibugyo virus (EBV) illustrate a case of how open and more restricted gene databases work, as discussed in a narrative elaborated by Adam Strobeyko: “What Hantavirus and Ebola Outbreaks Teach Us About PABS Database Governance.”

In the case of hantavirus, Swiss-based researchers who were among the first to sequence the virus opted for an open, unrestricted sharing. Meanwhile Ugandan and DR Congo researchers who sequenced EBV shared the data openly, but chose a model that imposes restrictions upon its use. 

The narrative illustrates how scientists with different needs and links with databases make different sharing choices in real time. This happens against the backdrop of an increasing number of national laws addressing sequence data. It thus remains technically and legally impossible to impose a single governance model across all pathogen databases worldwide – a fact of life that any PABS agreement will have to acknowledge.

Based on these hard facts, Daniela Morich elaborates on the concrete proposals for benefit sharing models that are emerging from the PABS negotiations, and some initial glimmers of convergence in her article: “Building Common Ground: The Evolution of Benefit-Sharing Discussions in the Pandemic Agreement.” 

Notably, there has been limited but meaningful acceptance — particularly from the European Union — that some form of structured benefit-sharing vis-à-vis products should apply not only during a Pandemic, but also during more “routine”  Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEIC), such as the current Bundibugyo Ebola virus raging in central Africa. While far from fully settled, this shift suggests a potential “landing zone”.  

While the 20% target for the real-time provision of products for pandemic emergencies was enshrined in the 2025 Pandemic Agreement – other types of proposed in-kind and monetary contributions have remained a sticking point in the PABS debate. But here, too, points of convergence may be emerging. 

In terms of monetary contributions, some countries favour a system in which those  contributions (presumably by pharma or other users of the pathogen data) serve exclusively to fund the operation of the PABS System, without requiring additional  payments linked to the commercial value of products developed. 

Others argue that benefit‑sharing should reflect the value added of products developed using PABS materials; they therefore support financial contribution models that tie contributions to commercial returns. 

In “Governance of the PABS Annex”, the final article in this Snapshot series, Gian Luca Burci, looks ahead to the implementation of the Pandemic Agreement. 

In particular, he points to the rather laconic references to a system of governance for the Accord, and how those might be interpreted and operationalized going forward. Elaborating further on how governance may really work in practice, is one of the next challenges that countries will face – once the PABS hurdle is really overcome. 

What has been achieved and what’s left to tackle in the PABS talks?

By Suerie Moon

In the corridors of the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA), the frustration and gloom were palpable. Delegates had missed WHA’s May 2026 deadline to deliver the Pandemic Agreement’s (PA) Annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) – a necessary precondition for WHO member states to begin ratification of the Pandemic Agreement reached in 2025. 

The WHA agreed to extend the talks for up to a year – noting that if  consensus can be reached earlier a  special session of the Assembly would be convened in 2026 – and many countries formally reiterated their commitment to getting it done.

While the near total absence of ‘green text’ (indicating consensus) in the latest draft left the impression that little headway has been made, that may be misleading. A look back at countries’ original proposals, and the evolution of negotiations over the past year, shows that progress has been significant, even if deep divisions remain. 

Coming to terms with complexity

A perennial challenge with PABS is the sheer technical complexity of the issues. Diplomats must not only master the finer points of how laboratories, databases and product R&D work, but also envision how they could work differently.

Over the past year, many delegates built a working familiarity with these topics – a necessary pre-condition to reaching agreement – and some previously-contested technical questions have largely been settled. 

For example, the idea that an individual genetic sequence can be tagged with a ‘universal persistent identifier’ now seems to be widely-accepted, even if countries disagree on the definition and purpose of such identifiers. Most importantly, after 9 months, a clearer common understanding of how the overall system could work seems to be emerging, with WHO-coordinated laboratory networks and WHO-recognized sequence databases comprising the backbone.

Seeking a middle ground with a ‘hybrid’ pathogen data registration system

In addition, after months of establishing and defending their positions, delegates have cautiously started to put on the table proposals that seek to find middle ground. For example, a ‘hybrid’ pathogen data registration system has now been proposed. This would give countries a choice of whether to share their data through open-access or registration-based databases; it aims to broker compromise between delegations wanting one or the other, an issue that  my colleague Adam Strobeyko discusses further in the second article of this series. 

The proposals for benefit-sharing during a Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEIC) – and not only during (far less frequent) Pandemic Emergencies – reflect efforts to infuse more meaning into the overarching  commitments of Article 12 of the Pandemic Agreement, as my colleague Daniela Morich addresses in her analysis, the third in this series.  

Countries do not all agree on the particulars of these and other proposals put forward so far, but they reflect real efforts to find elusive ‘landing zones’ – a shift from the pure tug-of-war dynamics that marked the earlier months of PABS negotiations. Notably, the May 2026 WHA decision extending the PABS talks included in its scope of work a mandate for member states to find agreement “to develop legally binding contracts,” a priority for the Global South, even if the content of those contracts remains a point of debate. 

Financing PABS 

 A great deal of attention has focused on a few of the most contentious issues over the past year (e.g. databases, which benefits should be shared when), but other critical issues have had little air time.

For example, how will the PABS system be financed? This question involves not only flows of monetary benefits, but also where would the additional funds needed to operationalize a system come from, and how would PABS financing fit into the broader Coordinating Financial Mechanism agreed in the PA and International Health Regulations. 

Technology transfer (including but not limited to licensing of intellectual property) is critical to achieve geographically diversified manufacturing capacity. But so far, countries have only agreed on the ends, not the means to make such transfers happen. Furthermore, key provisions for governance of the overall system remain to be defined. There is broad agreement on the need to create an expert PABS Advisory Group, but disagreement persists on the scope of the Advisory Group’s mandate, and  to whom it should report, as my colleague Gian Luca Burci discusses in the final article of this series.

US bilateral agreements: ‘termites’ in the wood of PABS architecture? 

Finally, a new elephant in the room has emerged since negotiations began: how to design a multilateral system that can function alongside the growing number of US bilateral global health agreements – under which  countries would be obliged to  share pathogen samples and data with the US government  in exchange for health aid.  

Bilateral agreements can weaken multilateral ones if they create escape routes from multilateral obligations, which is particularly problematic for issues like pandemics where all countries are affected. Bilateral deals can be described as ‘termites’ in the wood of the multilateral PABS house that is still under construction, to borrow a phrase from the trade arena.

In brief, negotiators must resolve many issues in the months ahead, but the slow wheels of multilateral negotiations have been grinding forward and are set to continue. 

It’s also important to remember that while the PABS negotiations proceed, delegates will be  contending with at least two other political issues on the global health agenda – the race for WHO’s next Director-General and the global health architecture reform process. Contending with all three at the same time  will stretch smaller delegations even more thinly across multiple negotiations. However, these additional bargaining chips could also open new possibilities for striking grand political bargains. 

Countries have in their hands the ingredients for a PABS deal – the question is whether many cooks can make one stew, what ingredients it will contain, and how palatable it will be.

Read the entire issue of this Governing Pandemics Snapshot series here. 

_____________________

Suerie Moon is the  Co-Director of the Global Health Centre of the  Geneva Graduate Institute, where she is also a Professor of Practice. Adam Strobeyko is a Legal Advisor and Researcher at the Global Health Centre. Daniela Morich is the Global Health Centre’s Head of Policy Engagement and the Global Health Platform.  Gian Luca Burci is a Senior Visiting Professor in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute and Academic Advisor at the Global Health Centre. He co-leads the Governing Pandemics Initiative.

The authors thank Diana Jalea for her editorial review and Anna Bezruki for her comments on an earlier draft.

Image Credits: Pathoplexus.org , Gerald Barber, Virginia Tech (with permission of the National Science Foundation), Gisaid.org.