[CTC] White House: Biden has not yet made a decision on TRIPS waiver

[Arthur Stamoulis]

*White House: Biden has not yet made a decision on TRIPS waiver*

By Hannah Monicken, Inside US Trade/

4/27/2021

President Biden has not decided whether to support a proposed waiver of
some World Trade Organization intellectual property rights rules as a part
of a global pandemic response, nor has U.S. Trade Representative Katherine
Tai made a recommendation to him, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
said on Tuesday.

The waiver, put forward by India and South Africa in October, would apply
to certain obligations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights, including patents. It has drawn a lot of
political attention, with progressive Democrats and civil society groups
pushing the administration to back the waiver and pharmaceutical companies
opposing it.

The administration is still considering its options and “there has not been
a recommendation made from USTR, nor has the president made a decision,”
Psaki said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Our focus is on maximizing production and supply for the world at the
lowest possible cost, and there are a lot of different ways to do that,”
she added. “Right now, that's one of the ways, but we have to assess what
makes the most sense.”

She cited safety – specifically Food and Drug Administration approval – as
one consideration. “We have manufacturing facilities that have been through
– a number of them have been through FDA approval or going through FDA
approval,” she said. “We have to evaluate whether it's more effective to
manufacture here and provide supply to the world or the IP waiver is an
option.”

The waiver has received the support of many developing countries, while
those skeptical of it are largely developed countries with significant
pharmaceutical industries. The TRIPS Council will meet in Geneva on Friday,
but it is not likely to advance the waiver. The chair of the council is
expected to tell the General Council, meeting next week, that the impasse
remains and WTO members will continue to discuss it.

Proponents argue that the once-in-a-century public health crisis deserves
extraordinary measures and waiving patents, and other IP rights, will allow
other countries to ramp up production of vaccines around the world.
Opponents dispute this, arguing that IP is not the barrier to increased
production and waiving IP could threaten the safety of the vaccines.

Tai met with top executives <https://insidetrade.com/node/171163> from
Pfizer and AstraZeneca on Monday and discussed the waiver and increasing
vaccine production, USTR said, without disclosing significant details.

The Biden administration has said that combatting the pandemic is its top
priority. With more than a quarter of the U.S. population vaccinated – and
India under siege from a brutal wave of COVID-19 deaths – the
administration has been under pressure to share its vaccine spoils with
other countries.

The White House recently announced it would make 60 million AstraZeneca
vaccines available to other countries, both directly and through the
international vaccine initiative COVAX, Psaki said on Tuesday. An initial
10 million are expected to be cleared by the FDA and sent out “in the next
couple weeks,” she said.



Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
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