US Government Supports ‘Vaccine Intellectual Property Protections Waiver’; Pharmaceutical Companies Should Also Join

An important breakthrough was reached in the worldwide debate on increasing vaccine production and equitable distribution when the Joe Biden administration announced that intellectual property protections would be temporarily removed from COVID-19 vaccines. On May 5 (local time), U.S. President Biden and Trade Representative Katherine Tai issued a statement at the World Trade Organization in support of the temporary suspension of intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines.

At the World Trade Organization, talks led by India and South Africa on the temporary suspension of COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property protections have been taking place since last October. While 100 countries have agreed, countries that host multinational pharmaceutical companies, like the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, have strongly opposed it. However, as the “vaccine-rich” United States has reversed its stance to one of support, the discussion has reached a significant turning point.

The key is the attitudes of the enormous multinational pharmaceutical companies developing COVID-19 vaccines. Those companies, fearing that the precedent set by the temporary suspension of intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines will allow demand for generic versions of patented medicine to grow stronger, are strongly opposing the proposal. If these pharmaceutical companies keep monopolizing vaccines, it will become almost impossible to escape this “COVID apocalypse.” The Guardian reports that, taking into account the 430 million doses (enough for about 215 million people) set to be produced by this April, large-scale vaccination will be impossible for poor countries even by 2023 at this rate. Whereas people are gradually returning to normal life in developed countries as vaccination rates increase, 400,000 people are infected with COVID-19 each day in India and are unable to even receive proper treatment.

Globally, the “rich get richer and poor get poorer” phenomenon of the vaccine is extremely serious. As the pandemic continues in “vaccine-poor” countries and the vaccine’s efficacy decreases due to mutant strains of the virus that spread out of their borders, not even “vaccine-rich” countries are safe.

Intellectual property protections for things like the development of new medicines should be respected. However, this is a time of catastrophe. In a statement, Tai emphasized that “this is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.” We have the experience of overcoming smallpox by sharing manufacturing techniques for antibiotics during World War II. If multinational pharmaceutical companies agree to the temporary suspension of intellectual property protections and share their technical skills, the whole world will be able to quickly overcome the vaccine shortage situation. This is a time in which we must escape the “logic of profit” and gather our strength through the “spirit of solidarity and cooperation.”