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The most important news in healthcare: Friday, May 7th
Today’s Pulse covers a surprising (and controversial) announcement by the White House regarding COVID-19 intellectual property rights. In case it isn’t patently obvious, this could mean a lot for the future of COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment.
Today’s Pulse is 600 words, or a 5 minute read.
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COVID-19 VaccinesGlobal proposal to waive COVID-19 patent rights
The pulse:
On Wednesday, the Biden administration said it would support a proposal by the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. This would allow countries to manufacture lower-cost vaccines on their own, without relying on patented tech.
What proposal are you talking about?
Back in late 2020, the governments of India and South Africa petitioned the World Trade Organization to make some modifications to an international trade agreement regarding intellectual property rights — essentially, to temporarily waive patent rights on all COVID-19 technologies. The two countries argued that this was the best way to ensure lower-income countries could achieve equal access to things such as COVID-19 vaccines. At the time, most wealthy countries (such as the US, the U.K., Israel, etc) were buying up hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines from companies such as Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca at prices poorer countries could never afford. The proposal was borne out of fears of vaccine inequities, marketed as a show of “global solidarity” against the pandemic.
What was the initial response?
Many wealthy countries, particularly the US, were synced in their opposition to the proposal. One major argument is that intellectual property and patent rights are a key driver of innovation — the more money a company stands to gain by solving a problem, the bigger the incentive to create a solution. Secondly, making vaccines isn’t cheap; companies may be dissuaded from spending the necessary but significant sums on research and development for less market share. You can bet Big Pharma echoed the concerns of these wealthy countries. Companies such as Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca would stand to lose billions with a proposal like this in place.
Other critics question why the COVID-19 pandemic should be treated differently than other global health crises. For example, heart disease remains the leading cause of death globally. By the “global solidarity” argument, should biotech companies be stopped from pursuing intellectual property rights on new cardiovascular drugs and technologies as well? What about cancer drugs? There’s certainly a slippery slope argument here, and again one that pharmaceutical companies will not take kindly to.
U.S. Trade Rep Katherine Tai. Source: The Guardian
Why the change in heart for the US?
One obvious explanation is the change in administration. Another explanation could be that global outbreaks with new variants, such as the current situation in India, have driven fears for future waves in mostly vaccinated countries. U.S. Trade Rep Katherine Tai had this to say:
The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for Covid-19 vaccines.
Is there another way to ensure better access to vaccines globally?
An alternate solution to the problem is to ramp up export of the vaccine to lower and middle income countries that cannot manufacture vaccines themselves. Currently, Europe is the main exporter of vaccines worldwide. Particularly as vaccine efforts in high income countries start to slow due to a majority of people being vaccinated, the US should consider ramping up vaccine export efforts.
Bottom line it for me:
The White House recently voiced support for the World Trade Organization’s proposal to waive patent rights for COVID-19 technologies. This proposal would likely inhibit innovation in a time when innovation is desperately needed. Increased vaccine exportation efforts may be a better way to address global vaccine equity.