According to Oxfam, nine out of ten people in underdeveloped countries will be left without a vaccine in 2021.
Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan / Bloomberg
Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan / Bloomberg
Covid-19 vaccines appear to protect millions of citizens around the world richer countries in the coming months. But inoculating the rest of the planet’s population can mean finding a way to avoid a dead end in intellectual property.
Representatives of the 164 member states of the World Trade Organization met last week in Geneva to discuss a proposal by India and South Africa to waive broad sections of WTO intellectual property rules and try to forge an agreement on how patents were developed in the race against Covid-19.
The meeting ended without consensus and frustrated the poorest countries that sponsored the proposal and legal protections for vaccines remained intact. This may be a victory for patent protection advocates, but the pressure for change will only grow if billions of people in the poorest countries are not vaccinated as the rich world begins to get a steady stream of doses of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc.
“With the biggest health crisis we’ve experienced, we still can’t find alternative ways to deal with intellectual property issues when everyone’s lives are at stake,” said Tahir Amin, executive director of the Medicines Initiative, access and knowledge, an organization that promotes better access to drugs. “You have the defenders who say, ‘Let’s knock down the wall,’ and then you have the investors who say, ‘If we open the door, it’s like the floodgates.’ We have to be smarter than that.”
A patent grants drug manufacturers exclusive rights to manufacture a vaccine they developed, and also provides them with the power to charge a price that covers research and development costs. Its profit margin per dose, however, depends on the urgency of the situation and, in the midst of a pandemic, charging anything more than development costs is likely to be controversial. India’s proposal would require the waiver to remain in force until there is widespread vaccination and the majority of the world’s population has developed immunity.
Whether it is possible to reconcile will only become clear as the pandemic unfolds. The European Union and the United States, where the main drug manufacturers live, are vehemently opposed to the proposal, although prices may offer room for negotiation.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech has said its vaccine will cost the United States $ 19.50 a dose. It’s likely to be too much for many poorer countries, even if they are discounted, especially considering the cost of the vaccine’s ice cream storage requirements. But the AstraZeneca vaccine costs $ 4 to $ 5 per dose and is the big hope for the developing world right now.
The Covax alliance, an effort backed by more than 90 rich countries that seeks to increase access to vaccines by about 90 poor people, has reached an agreement with AstraZeneca to buy and distribute vaccines.
Last month, Covax said it had raised $ 2 billion, but it may not be enough, as it needs another $ 5 billion next year to get two million doses. On Tuesday, the EU and the European Investment Bank announced € 500 million ($ 608 million) in funding to help vaccinate 1 billion people as part of that effort.
“We’re an integrated world,” said Fred Abbott, a professor at Florida State University College of Law. “Everyone understands that everyone can be vaccinated in the United States, but if you don’t vaccinate everyone around the world, you’ll still have a problem.”
However, pressure from developing countries will only increase next year if they remain within reach. UNAIDS, the UN agency that fights the immunodeficiency virus, defines it as a choice between “a people’s vaccine or a for-profit vaccine.”
One patient receives the Covid-19 vaccine in Newcastle, UK, on 8 December.
Photographer: Owen Humphreys / PA Wire / Bloomberg
Although the first vaccines have been distributed in recent days in the UK, nine out of ten people in poor countries will miss a vaccine in 2021, according to Oxfam. This echoes the early days of the AIDS response, said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS executive director, when “treatment was only available to the rich while the poorest countries had to wait years.”
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations argues that patent suspension is fraught with danger. If you give up patents this time, you run the risk of damaging all the medical infrastructure that allowed Covid vaccines to be developed in record time, said CEO Thomas Cueni.
“Erosion of patent protections has far-reaching consequences,” he wrote in a recent paper New York News opinion piece, which cites the development of messenger RNA, the underlying innovation common to Pfizer and Modern vaccines. “Scientists eager to explore the future uses of mRNA will struggle to find investments if intellectual property protections are ripped off when others deem it necessary.”
Pharmacists like AstraZeneca pledged not to take advantage of their vaccine over time pandemic, while Moderna has said it will not enforce its patents during the pandemic. Even frequent critics of drug manufacturers have praised some of these efforts.
There are precedents for countries that have suspended patents unilaterally, but have rarely been used since 1945. The application would be harsh: most patent applications have not yet been issued and it is difficult to enforce them. companies to reveal trade secrets, such as manufacturing processes that can have wide uses beyond vaccines.
Back at the WTO, delegates have agreed to keep discussions open and will present a report to the WTO General Council meeting on December 16, which highlights the “current lack of consensus” on the issue, according to a statement from the organization.
James Pooley, former deputy director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, believes that while the proposal is unlikely to get anywhere, it could have an impact on the line.
“It’s the battering ram at the door,” he said. “If they don’t stop doing it, a hinge can be broken.”
– With the assistance of James Paton, Bryce Baschuk and Yudith Ho