On June 4 2020, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is launching a global mechanism to negotiate with pharmaceutical corporations for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines at its third donor pledging conference taking place 4 June (hosted by the UK government). To date, governments and philanthropies have given over US$4.3 billion to pharmaceutical corporations for research and development for COVID-19 vaccines. However, by and large no conditions for access or affordability have been included as a precondition to any of that funding.