Intellectual Property Of Vaccines Still In The Pharmaceuticals. An Appropriate Mean To Preserve The Profits.

 

In a sharp reversal of past policy, President Biden last week came out in favor of a World Trade Organization proposal that would waive certain intellectual property protections around COVID-19 vaccines. The move, meant to boost the production of vaccines and address issues of inequity in their distribution, would reveal proprietary information held by companies designing the shots, although some proponents wonder whether the waiver is enough.

 

The proposal at the center of the argument was submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) last fall by India and South Africa, two countries currently beset by aggressive SARS-COV 2 variants. India alone is reporting roughly 300,000 new infections each day, a tally that accounts for roughly half of the world’s new cases, according to The New York Times.

 

Both countries requested a waiver that would exempt WTO member countries from enforcing certain laws related to patents and industry trade secrets that are covered under the organization’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)agreement. If approved unanimously, the waiver would give countries and companies access to vaccine ingredients and manufacturing processes, allowing drug companies worldwide to make generic versions of COVID-19 vaccines for distribution in developing countries that currently do not have access.

 

The White House’s decision to support the proposal angered pharmaceutical companies and prompted statements from other WTO member countries, the Associated Press reports. While the US had been a holdout under former President Donald Trump, other countries had also been lukewarm. In response to the US announcement last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel voiced her opposition through a government spokesperson, who stated that the ruling would cause “severe complications” for the production of vaccines.