Countries Need Covid Vaccines Now, and Patent Waivers Won’t Deliver Them Bloomberg 5/7/2021 James Paton and Tim Loh
(Bloomberg) The U.S.-backed effort to waive patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines, even if successful, is unlikely to narrow a yawning gap in access to life-saving shots anytime soon.
The proposal faces weeks of difficult negotiations and intense pushback from the pharmaceutical industry. And if it were approved at the World Trade Organization, it could take a year or more to meaningfully increase supplies, vaccine specialists said.
“The short answer is no, it’s not going to make any big difference,” said Klaus Stohr, a former World Health Organization official who helped mobilize governments and drugmakers to prepare for pandemics. “Patents are not the real hurdle. It’s the understanding of complex technology.”
U S support for vaccine patent waiver shifts to WTO debate
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Industry weary of waving vaccine patents | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW
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U S vaccine patent surprise roils pharma as WTO debate heats up
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Intellectual property is just one part of the story in vaccine production and practical know-how is equally important , said Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU Commission Executive Vice-President, as international calls for lifting patents on coronavirus vaccines mount. It s important to understand what is the problem that we re trying to solve. The problem is that we need to ramp up global vaccine production as fast as possible and we need to ensure accessibility to vaccines in both developed and developing countries, Dombrovskis, who is in charge of trade and relations with the World Trade Organization (WTO), told Euronews. The question is how also we can ramp up production in developing countries and this can be done through voluntary licensing. It can be done, if needed, through compulsory licensing. From the EU [side], we re indicating that we re ready to work also in this kind of solutions.