In this pandemic, it is a race between getting people vaccinated and the growth of the COVID variants. If we can get enough people vaccinated quickly enough, it would mean reaching herd immunity, or at least close enough to herd immunity where we can minimize the spread of variants. Last week, President Biden's administration advocated for an idea to accelerate vaccine production: waiving intellectual property (IP) protections for the COVID vaccines. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced that the U.S. would support the World Trade Organization (WTO) petition of India and South Africa to suspend IP protections so that generic manufacturers can manufacture their own versions of COVID vaccines. Tai's argument is that "desperate times call for desperate measures." To help fulfill the demand for the vaccines, Tai assumes that removing the IP protections will translate in a ramped-up manufacturing and production of vaccines. There are a few issues with the assumption of the Biden administration.
First, IP protections are a moot point since Moderna already has foregone its patent protections for its vaccines. Plus, three COVID vaccine manufacturers licensed their technologies to Indian manufacturers. The fact that none of the other vaccine manufacturing companies have seized the opportunity to create their own version of the vaccine suggests that IP protections are not the issue.
Second is that there is a misdiagnosis of the problem by the Biden administration. The assumption is that the bottleneck is being caused by the IP protections. Per the previous point, that is unlikely to be the case. As financial services company Morningstar mentions in its market assessment, removing IP protections will not affect the market. Adar Poonawalla, who is the CEO of the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, made the same argument. The main issue is manufacturing capacity, specifically with building safe and efficient mRNA manufacturing that is at scale. This is all the more true considering that vaccine technology is so complicated that it cannot be reverse-engineered the same way that other pharmaceuticals can be.
Third, we might not have a supply shortage for much longer. If we assume that current vaccine manufacturers are accurate with their projections, we should have enough doses for 7 billion doses by the end of the year.
Fourth, the waiver will not help countries in need receive the vaccines in time. As the Biotechnology Industry Association points out, "Handing needy countries a recipe book without the ingredients, safeguards, and sizable workforce needed will not help people waiting for the vaccine. Handing them the blueprint to construct a kitchen that -- in optimal conditions -- can take a year to build will not help us stop the emergence of dangerous new COVID variants."
Finally, it might go beyond simply not doing any good. It could end up doing harm, as the American Intellectual Property Law Association illustrates. The purpose of IP protections is to incentivize innovation and collaboration. It takes millions of dollars to fund such research and development efforts, not to mention other risks undertaken. If the IP protections are waived in this pandemic, it would establish a precedent to undermine incentives to create treatments and vaccines in future pandemics.
How do we deal with the issue of the current supply shortage? One solution is to continue to build upon current global vaccine partnerships (e.g., COVAX). Another is to replace the patent system with a prize system, which would keep the incentives for inventors in place while making sure monopolistic or oligopolistic power takes place. In any case, all Biden's move would do is to give false hope and could very well undermine IP protections for the foreseeable future.
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