Vaccines and Patents: Biden a Hero on the Cheap

Declaring himself in favor of the waiver of patents on vaccines, Biden has put Europeans in an awkward position on the question of global solidarity. But this announcement will have little effect in the short term, while the emergency is real.

Too much, Joe Biden! By declaring himself in favor, on May 5, of a temporary waiver of patents on COVID-19 vaccines developed by the laboratories of wealthy nations in order to improve vaccination access by poor countries, the American president has robbed Europeans of the totem of global solidarity.

“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures,” explained U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai in announcing this shift. This is indeed a 180-degree turn on the position defended until now by Washington before the World Trade Organization, which deals with questions of intellectual property. In October 2020, when India and South Africa requested a waiver of patents on RNA vaccines such as those manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Japan stood up in opposition to the demand in the name of protection of innovation — and in the name, critics accused, of the protection of Big Pharma.

However, since then, terrible tolls have made this position morally difficult to defend, against the backdrop of absolute disaster in India; of 1.1 billion vaccines administered thus far worldwide, only 18 million of them have been in Africa. At the same time, the sale of COVID-19 vaccines has yielded Pfizer $3.5 billion (2.5 billion euros) in the first quarter.

More Complicated Than It Seems

Without letting anyone know, especially not its European partners, the Biden administration has thus judged that the moment had come to change positions. Placed in an awkward position, the EU, through the voice of the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared itself “ready to discuss” this proposal at the WTO on Thursday [May 6]. President Emmanuel Macron, who has demanded that the vaccine, while still non-existent, become a “global public good” since 2020, could also only give in.

The affair is, however, more complicated than it seems. If, ethically, the decision is not debatable, it won’t have any practical effect in the short term, while the urgency is real. According to the president and CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, who himself opened up his patent, the waiving of patents “will not enable an improvement in the supply of mRNA vaccines in the world either in 2021 nor in 2022.”

The problem is in reality that of production capacities in developing countries, as well as the technology transfers and know-how necessary to enable the production of these vaccines of an extremely innovative design. India, for example, has access to an important pharmaceutical industry and manufactures its version of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine under a licensing agreement, but does not have the technology to produce mRNA vaccines.

The Europeans thus have reason to point out, as they did on Thursday, in Paris in particular, that the real urgency is found elsewhere than in a dramatic announcement on patents by a country that waited to have half of its population vaccinated in order to do it, especially one that doesn’t export its vaccines. “While others keep their production for themselves, Europe is the principal exporter of vaccines in the world,” von der Leyen said.

That is called public diplomacy and Biden excels at it: For the EU, it is one more lesson to keep in mind. Meanwhile, while discussions are getting under way at the WTO, the United States should match its action to its good intentions and put the hundreds of millions of doses that it has in stock in the service of the international COVAX mechanism.