Cape Times E-dition

Vaccine patent debate

THE US’s sudden support for a waiver of patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines is headed to the World Trade Organization (WTO), setting the stage for potentially thorny negotiations over sharing the proprietary know-how needed to boost global supplies of the life-saving shots.

“In terms of how soon the WTO can deliver – that literally depends on the WTO members, collectively, being able to deliver,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said.

With the EU and China signalling a willingness to take part in the debate after the Biden administration’s shock announcement, pharmaceutical executives reacted with anger and their stock prices tumbled worldwide.

BioNTech’s depository receipts dropped as much as 19% in Germany while shares in Pfizer were down 2.5% in US premarket trading in New York, after closing little changed. Together, the companies sell the messenger RNA shot that was one of the first to win regulatory endorsement.

“This change in long-standing American policy will not save lives,” said Stephen Ubl, president and chief exe3cutive of PhRMA, the biopharma industry’s lobbying group.

“This decision does nothing to address the real challenges to getting more shots in arms, including last-mile distribution and limited availability of raw materials.”

CureVac of Germany, which is developing another mRNA vaccine, fell as much as 17%, while Asian vaccine stocks including Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co and CanSino Biologics also slumped.

“The EU is ready to discuss any proposal that addresses the crisis in an effective and pragmatic manner,” EU president Ursula von der Leyen told a virtual conference yesterday.

The US and Europe have been strong supporters of IP protections at the WTO over the years, particularly as a way to enforce problems like Chinese patent infringement.

As the pandemic leads to some of the world’s more monumental and lucrative scientific discoveries, defenders of IP rights are warming to exceptions on ethical grounds when it comes to vaccines even though the drug companies argue it’ll do more harm than good. The WTO’s general council met again yesterday, but any final waiver of intellectual property protections may take weeks to hammer out in the face of opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.

Tai added that she sees momentum from WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala “to take this opportunity and see what is the WTO capable of”.

Okonjo-Iweala called it the “moral and economic issue of our time.”

The Biden administration will encourage other countries to join its position, Tai said. “We are for the waiver at the WTO, we are for what the proponents of the waiver are trying to accomplish, which is better access, more manufacturing capability, more shots in arms,” she said.

Drugmakers argue that the plan is ineffective and that few countries have the capacity to produce more vaccines even if they knew the formulas. Also, there’s limited global supply of the materials needed, and building new factories with necessary technology to produce the vaccines could take years, they say.

Nathalie Moll, director general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, said the Biden administration’s decision “puts the hard-won progress in fighting this terrible disease in jeopardy … waiving patents will make winning the fight against the coronavirus even harder,” Moll said.

India and South Africa have been urging WTO members to temporarily suspend rules on IP rights, arguing it would be the most efficient, equitable way to address vaccine shortages in poor countries.

The US wasn’t the only country with initial reservations. The EU, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Brazil and Norway have also resisted earlier proposals.

However, supporters of the waiver argue that US leadership on the issue could help sway other holdouts. The timing for approval of the waiver depends on how soon member states can find agreement.

WORLD

en-za

2021-05-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://capetimes.pressreader.com/article/281741272291345

African News Agency