The United States now supports waiving protections on the intellectual property behind COVID-19 vaccines as a way of quickening the end of the global pandemic, the U.S. trade representative said Wednesday.
Amid ongoing international pressure for countries to negotiate shared intellectual property rights in the face of the pandemic, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the Biden administration supported moving in that direction.
“The Administration strongly believes in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” Tai said in a statement.
“We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen,” she added. “Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved.”
Tai’s statement represents a shift in the border-spanning effort to open up vaccine information.
South Africa and India, the latter of which is currently experiencing a devastating spike in infections, have for months called on the WTO to suspend intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, but wealthy nations and the pharmaceutical industry have resisted that effort.
The United States, United Kingdom, European Union and others have blocked the proposal to waive an international intellectual property agreement in the past.
Last month, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on intellectual property, wrote to Tai that “The waiver’s main concrete impact would therefore be to legitimate the transfer of American technologies to foreign competitors.”
Biden, on the campaign trail, promised the activist Ady Barkan that he would share vaccine information with other countries if elected president — a commitment that Barkan pressed Biden on in a video Saturday.
President Biden made an unequivocal promise to the American people.
Will he keep his word? We find out this week. pic.twitter.com/UMSDYN6Oei
— Ady Barkan (@AdyBarkan) May 2, 2021
“@potus did the right thing and has dropped US opposition to the #TRIPSWaiver,” Barkan wrote of the breaking news Wednesday, referring to the WTO agreement known as Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
“Now the US must do everything possible to ensure the negotiations are swift and successful.”
A WTO meeting Wednesday prior to Tai’s statement was “far more constructive, pragmatic, it was less emotive and less finger-pointing” than previous meetings on the issue, WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters afterward.
Rockwell noted that India and South Africa are expected to present a revised proposal to the WTO next month that may include a timeline for a temporary IP waiver, but no further detail was available, CNN reported.
Damn straight. Do it now.
People are dying, and variants are brewing.
Not really sure how this would work. Is the idea that foreign countries would get the ability to make vaccines using the IP? Will there be a compulsory license? Lots to work out here. Also, not sure it addresses the issue.
India, for example, is a vaccine manufacturer. Modi simply gave away a lot of his supply, didn’t manufacture enough to meet demand, and took a quasi protectionist approach on the major foreign made vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, J&J). He still hasn’t imported any of these vaccines even though Pfizer has said they will provide them at cost and even though his country is being overrun by COVID. In terms of manufacturing, is it really the case that a foreign country with no experience in this can stand up a manufacturing facility to increase supply better than the major companies can with gov’t support? This isn’t like making widgets.
I would like to understand the reasoning and what they think they can accomplish with this waiver.
I agree. The world’s wealthiest governments contributed significant financial support to create, purchase, and distribute the vaccines currently available. Those governments should be able to make them available in whatever quantities to whomever they wish, including allowing other companies to produce and distribute them.
In April 2020 you had Finnish researchers arguing for “open-source” vaccines and nasal-spray delivery systems. Like polio, the goal is suppression of the virus throughout the species, not individual countries. Yet for a year, open-source vaccines were poo-pooed, and not just by the companies holding patents. Bill Gates didn’t like Linux, so it was almost a matter of principle that he came out against open-source vaccines. Better late than never, I guess.