updated: May 09 2021, 16:18 ist
India, South Africa and other developing countries are likely to push for a wider waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 drugs and medical tools after US President Joe Biden and Trade Representative Katherine Tai backed their call to waive off intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines.
India and South Africa had submitted a joint proposal to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), touching upon the broad areas of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver they were seeking. The revised draft is likely to go into further detail on the coverage and duration of the waiver, which could be longer than originally anticipated, according to a report by
COVID-19 1 hour ago
President Joe Biden s team endorsed the idea on Wednesday with Trade Representative Katherine Tai saying in a statement that it supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines. A variant of this virus is closed nationalism, which prevents, for example, an internationalism of vaccines, he said in comments translated by Reuters. Another variant is when we put the laws of the market or of intellectual market or intellectual property over the laws of love and the health of humanity, the pope added.
Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel have also come out against the waiver, with the country s BioNTech being a key partner for Pfizer in the development of its vaccine. German and other European officials argue that making and sharing vaccines more quickly is crucial in ending the pandemic.
Friday, 07 May 2021 07:39 AM MYT
A person walks past the Pfizer Headquarters building in the Manhattan borough of New York November 9, 2020. Reuters pic
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WASHINGTON, May 7 A bold US bid to waive patents on much-needed coronavirus vaccines was strongly opposed by Germany on Thursday, threatening to derail the proposal that requires the consensus of World Trade Organization members to pass.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla meanwhile told AFP his company was “not at all” in favour of the measure, insisting intellectual property is not the main roadblock to more production and that building new plants would be counterproductive.
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Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks during a press conference at Pfizer s factory in Puurs, Belgium. (John Thys/Pool/AFP)
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Thursday said he was against a US-backed proposal to waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines and that production should be ramped up in existing facilities instead.
In an interview with AFP, Bourla said his company, which developed its vaccine with German firm BioNTech, was “not at all” in favor of the call from the United States to waive patent protections for coronavirus shots.
The widely praised move by the US announced on Wednesday is seen by proponents as a way to boost production in developing countries that so far have received far fewer jabs.
The proposed temporary waiver was first suggested by India and South Africa at a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in October and is “gathering support from a large number of developing countries”, Reuters reports. The plan’s backers argue that making coronavirus jabs more widely available is a “vital step” in combating the global pandemic, says the news agency.
The US had previously withheld its support, however, alongside the EU, UK, Japan, Switzerland, Brazil and Norway. But now supporters of the waiver are hoping that “US leadership on the issue could help sway other holdouts”, following the change of heart by Joe Biden’s administration, says Al Jazeera.