Letter to US Trade Representative Tai urges to oppose request by India, other nations for TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 vaccines

Washington: In a letter to US Trade Representative Katherine C Tai on Tuesday (native time), Ranking Member Jim Jordan, and Darrell Issa, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual property, and the Internet urged Washington to oppose a request by India, other nations for TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 vaccines.India, South Africa, and other nations requested to waive sure parts of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The requested waiver will present many individuals with attainable entry to vaccines and coverings for COVID-19, together with in creating international locations.But as per the letter by Jordan and Issa, the waiver would undermine the very innovation that has led to the record-breaking fast improvement of COVID-19 vaccines already saving lives world wide, and it will not meaningfully enhance vaccine availability.

The worldwide group ought to as an alternative focus on overcoming the actual obstacles confronted by creating international locations in accessing vaccines and coverings, which doesn’t require waiving mental property (IP) rights, mentioned the letter.The justification for the waiver rests on an incorrect assumption that IP rights are a major bottleneck to the widespread availability of COVID-19 vaccines and coverings. The waiver`s sponsors have offered no convincing proof to help this assertion.

Instead, the sponsors primarily simply level out that related IP rights exist and speculate that these rights may function a barrier to entry to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments–not that IP rights have really blocked or considerably hindered their availability, mentioned the letter.”In reality, factors other than IP have had a far greater effect on the availability of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. For example, logistical challenges such as the lack of cold storage, transportation and infrastructure problems, and shortages in basic supplies like syringes have posed significant challenges to widespread COVID-19  vaccination, particularly in developing countries. These issues are nothing new; vaccines have presented such problems for years. Cancelling IP rights would do nothing to alleviate these problems now,” mentioned the members in a letter to Tai.

In truth, permitting probably any producer to ignore IP rights and produce advanced COVID-19 medicine on their very own may as an alternative enhance the chance that faulty and probably unsafe medicines are produced, harming the sufferers who obtain them, damaging public confidence,  and in the end undermining world vaccination efforts, mentioned the letter.Rather than assault the IP rights of progressive corporations which have invested billions of {dollars} in creating these life-saving medicines, the worldwide group ought to focus on addressing the actual obstacles to widespread entry to COVID-19 vaccines and coverings, mentioned Jordan and Issa.

As per the letter, a broad coalition of nations, together with the United States, are supporting the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator initiative and the associated COVAX program. COVAX has already begun supplying over 140 international locations with practically 240 million doses of vaccines from AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech.”In fact, relevant IP rights have been successfully licensed to expand access to COVID-19 innovations while maintaining IP protections. For example, the Serum Institute of India has secured licenses to produce multiple vaccines, including the AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines,” it mentioned.South Africa`s Aspen Pharmacare has secured a license to produce the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Several vaccine makers have licensed direct rivals to enhance vaccine manufacturing capability.

Moderna has introduced that it will not search to implement any of its COVID-19-related patents in opposition to other vaccine makers for the remainder of the pandemic and has pledged to license its COVID-19 vaccine patents.Gilead has licensed 9 generic pharmaceutical producers (together with in India) to produce its COVID-19 therapeutic drug Remdesivir for 127 international locations, most of that are creating nations.

Moreover, TRIPS already permits international locations to impose obligatory licenses to entry very important IP rights, and no nation has availed itself of that functionality to date for COVID-19 vaccines or remedies.The proposed waiver is just not restricted to patents on vaccines or remedies for COVID-19–the waiver would additionally intestine protections for copyrights, industrial designs (e.g., textile patterns or other decorative designs), and commerce secrets and techniques. The waiver`s supporters have solely supplied obscure, unsubstantiated explanations for how waiving IP protections for copyrights or industrial designs would lead to an improved vaccine or therapeutics availability, mentioned the letter.