<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/10/dont-let-intellectual-property-rights-get-way-global-vaccination/" class="">https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/10/dont-let-intellectual-property-rights-get-way-global-vaccination/</a><div class=""><h1 class="
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" data-qa="headline" id="main-content"><span data-qa="headline-opinion-text" class="">Poor countries may not be vaccinated until 2024. Here’s how to prevent that.</span></h1><div class=""><div class="flex"><div class="items-center"><div class="mb-sm byline flex" data-qa="byline"><div class="font-xxs gray-dark self-center dib font--subhead author-text"><div class="author-names">Opinion by <span data-qa="author-name-wrapper" class=""><span class="author-name font-bold black">Matthew Kavanagh</span><span class="gray-dark"> and </span></span><span data-qa="author-name-wrapper" class="">Madhavi Sunder</span></div></div></div><div class="gray-dark mb-md font--subhead font-xxs" data-qa="timestamp"><div class=" display-date">March 10, 2021 at 5:01 p.m. EST</div></div></div></div><div class="article-body"><div class="teaser-content"><section class=""><div class=""><p data-el="text" class="gray-darkest font-copy ma-0 pb-md font--body"><i class="">Matthew
M. Kavanagh is director of the Global Health Policy & Politics
Initiative at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and
Global Health Law and assistant professor of international health.
Madhavi Sunder is associate dean for International and Graduate Programs
and law professor at Georgetown University Law Center.</i></p></div><div class=""></div><div class=""><p data-el="text" class="gray-darkest font-copy ma-0 pb-md font--body">President
Biden announced last week that the United States will have enough
vaccines for every American adult by the end of May. Other rich nations
will soon follow suit, having purchased enough doses to inoculate their
populations many times over. Lower-income countries, however, have yet
to find a pathway to herd immunity anytime soon. Indeed, experts say
that without significant policy changes, poor countries may not be
vaccinated against covid-19 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/27/most-poor-nations-will-take-until-2024-to-achieve-mass-covid-19-immunisation" class="">until</a> 2023 or 2024.</p></div></section></div><div class="remainder-content"><section class=""><div class=""><p data-el="text" class="gray-darkest font-copy ma-0 pb-md font--body">We
must make critical changes now to fix this inequity and avert a public
health disaster. Vaccinating everyone around the world is not just a
moral imperative. With variants of the novel <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a>
first found in Brazil, South Africa and Britain already spreading in
the United States, it is clear global vaccination is necessary to end
the pandemic.</p></div><div class=""><div class=" dn cb mr-neg-gutter relative bg-offwhite mb-lg mr-auto-ns pb-md ml-neg-gutter ml-auto-ns pt-md db-ns mt-xxs hide-for-print
" data-qa="article-body-ad" style="min-height:250px"><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">At
the World Trade Organization on Wednesday, the United States and a
small number of wealthy countries with ready access to vaccines blocked a
proposal by India and South Africa to temporarily waive countries’
obligation to enforce patents on covid-19 technologies, including
vaccines, during the pandemic. The Biden administration should drop its
objection, and WTO members should pass the waiver — quickly.</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">Two decades ago, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-the-doha-declaration-means/2011/09/29/gIQAGh4EBL_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_9" target="_blank" class="">WTO’s Doha Declaration</a> affirmed intellectual <a href="https://www.who.int/medicines/areas/policy/doha_declaration/en/" target="_blank" class="">property rules</a>
“should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public
health.” But the clarification of the right of nations to issue
compulsory licenses and make generic medicines came too late: More than <a href="https://aidsinfo.unaids.org/" class="">5 million</a> people in low- and middle-income countries died from AIDS waiting for the WTO to clarify its rules.</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">Now we are in the middle of another global health emergency. <a href="https://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2021/ti210220.htm" target="_blank" class="">Two-thirds</a> of WTO <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/trips-waiver-tripped-up-in-wto-by-third-way-99329" class="">members</a>
back waiving patent rules during the pandemic, but the United States
and others argue that patents are critical for innovation and are not
slowing the global supply of vaccines. Neither is true. First, patents
played little, if any, role in stimulating the “warp speed” development
of covid-19 vaccines. The Moderna vaccine was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/11/24/fact-check-donations-research-grants-helped-fund-moderna-vaccine/6398486002/" class="">almost entirely funded</a> by the U.S. government, with an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/world/dolly-parton-donated-1-million-to-help-develop-a-coronavirus-vaccine.html" class="">additional $1 million</a>
donated by Dolly Parton. It is inappropriate for a private company to
monopolize technology funded by taxpayers. Moderna itself recognizes
this, having previously <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-moderna/moderna-will-not-enforce-covid-19-vaccine-patents-during-pandemic-idUSL4N2GZ2D6" class="">announced</a> that it will not seek to enforce its vaccine patents.</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">The United States also argues the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-wto-idINKBN28022W" class="">waiver</a>
is unnecessary because countries such as India can already begin
producing covid-19 vaccines for their own populations, and export them
to developing countries under existing WTO rules. But the current
machinery is cumbersome; implementation may take years. The waiver,
however, would allow generic drug companies to begin making and
distributing the vaccines as soon as possible.</div></div></div><div class=""><p data-el="text" class="gray-darkest font-copy ma-0 pb-md font--body">Finally,
the United States and other opponents argue that even if generic drug
companies get the patents, there is nobody who can make them. They <a href="https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/02/02/myths-of-vaccine-manufacturing" class="">suggest</a>
technology using mRNA underlying some of the new vaccines is so
complicated that even respected generic drug companies cannot make the
vaccines. This leads us to the next necessary step: tech transfer.</p></div><div class=""><p data-el="text" class="gray-darkest font-copy ma-0 pb-md font--body">If
patent rights are waived, companies around the world, such as Biovac in
South Africa or Cipla in India, could rapidly retool their
manufacturing capacity to make these vaccines, with experts at the ready
to help. But they also need the recipe. While a patent is supposed to
explain how to make a product, many of today’s pharmaceutical patent
filers intentionally obscure this information. Therefore, the companies
making these vaccines should share exactly how they make them.</p></div><div class=""><div class=" dn cb mr-neg-gutter relative bg-offwhite mb-lg mr-auto-ns pb-md ml-neg-gutter ml-auto-ns pt-md db-ns mt-xxs hide-for-print
" data-qa="article-body-ad" style="min-height:250px"><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">Sharing
technology with low- and middle-income countries is standard practice
for many medicines. Gilead Sciences shared technology to help
manufacturers based in Egypt, India and Pakistan to <a href="https://www.gilead.com/purpose/advancing-global-health/covid-19/voluntary-licensing-agreements-for-remdesivir" class="">make and sell remdesivir as a covid-19 treatment </a>last year; a <a href="https://globalhealthprogress.org/collaboration/viiv-healthcare-technology-transfer-and-antiretroviral-arv-licensing/" class="">company</a>
co-owned by Pfizer has done the same for HIV drugs. Vaccines are harder
to engineer than AIDS drugs, so sharing tech is essential.</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">Having
funded key vaccine development, the U.S. government has the leverage to
push companies to open up their vaccines to the world. The World Health
Organization has already <a href="https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19-5-march-2021?s=08" class="">said</a>
it will help with expertise, and companies such as Moderna, Pfizer and
Johnson & Johnson could receive royalties on the sales. But what
they must not do is block producers in Africa, Asia and Latin America
from making lifesaving vaccines and exporting them to their neighbors.</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">We
cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. Just as the AIDS
crisis in Africa necessitated the Doha Declaration, the covid-19
pandemic necessitates both a temporary intellectual property waiver from
the WTO and a bold effort to share know-how — not in 2024, but now.
Indeed, the covid-19 era should change the way we think about patents
and public health. Intellectual property rights are not ends in
themselves; they are tools to promote human flourishing.</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%"><br class=""></div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">Arthur Stamoulis</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">Citizens Trade Campaign</div><div class="z-0 absolute" aria-hidden="true" style="left:50%;top:50%">(202) 494-8826</div></div></div></section></div></div></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class="">
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Arthur Stamoulis<br class="">Citizens Trade Campaign<br class="">(202) 494-8826<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class="">
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