Patents for COVID-19 vaccines slow global supply, raise risk of new variants, advocates say

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Waiving patents on COVID-19 vaccines would remove "a legal hurdle" to companies and developing countries producing the shots and fixing a global supply problem, says an advocate with Oxfam Canada.

"It allows them to produce it without having to worry about being taken to court or having other kinds of financial or punitive measures lobbied at them for infringing patents," said Siham Rayale, Oxfam Canada's policy and advocacy lead on humanitarian and refugee issues.

Oxfam is among organizations supporting India and South Africa's call for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily suspend patents and intellectual property (IP) rules on vaccines, for the course of the pandemic.

Data from the World Health Organization, released earlier this month, suggests richer countries have so far received 87 per cent of COVID-19 vaccines, with low-income countries receiving just 0.2 per cent.

That waiver would allow countries to "rapidly scale up vaccine manufacturing and production," Rayale told The Current's Matt Galloway.

The callto suspend the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is backed by dozens of developing countries, but has not received support from some G7 countries since it was initially proposed last October.

Should patents on COVID-19 vaccines be suspended?

3 years ago

Duration 7:46

Doctors Without Borders is urging rich countries to take steps to allow more coronavirus vaccines to be produced around the world, including in developing nations, without fear of reprisal. Intellectual property rights prevent countries from making domestic versions of vaccines. Hundreds of Nobel laureates and 75 former world leaders have already signed a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden calling on him to suspend patents during the pandemic.

With another meeting about the issue scheduled for this week, a group of 170 former heads of state and Nobel laureates wrote to U.S. President Joe Biden this month, urging him to waive U.S. intellectual property rules and support the proposal at the WTO.The White house said Tuesday that a decision has not been reached.

In Canada, the federal government insists it "has not rejected the waiver proposal," but still has questions, and is committed to finding "consensus-based solutions."

Speaking to The Current in February, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he didn't believe an IP waiver would solve the supply problem.

"It's about these factories being exactly right and passing strict regulatory review," said Gates, who has donated $1.75 billion to the fight against COVID-19.

"There are very few high quality vaccine factories in the world. And IP is not the issue."

Bill Gates on innovation sparked by pandemic

4 years ago

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Microsoft co-founder explains why innovation as a result of the coronarvirus could better prepare the world for the next pandemic and help with other diseases.

Rayale disagreed, saying "you don't have to go far to look for manufacturing capacity to be able to produce vaccines, particularly in the global south."

She said there are facilities in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal and Egypt that are already producing other vaccines and could pivot to COVID-19 shot production.

South Africa has already provided details of these and other options to the WTO, she said.

"All it takes is investment in existing infrastructure that can be repurposed to make COVID-19 vaccines," she said.

She also dismissed the argument that removing IP protection would discourage companies from investing in vaccines, reiterating that the waiver is temporary.

Several companies also received billions in public money to develop COVID-19 vaccines, she added, but much of the profits will go to company shareholders, not back to the public purse.

Removing protection will hamper collaboration: expert

Andrei Iancu, the former director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, argued that removing patent protection "would slow down vaccine distribution."

Patents have allowed companies to enter into international collaborations in developing and producing vaccines, said Iancu, a partner at the law firm Irell & Manella, in California.

"Major competitors are collaborating: Johnson & Johnson and Merck, Pfizer and Novartis," he told Galloway.

"Without IP, these companies would be much more reluctant to enter into these collaboration agreements."

Under TRIPS, signatory countries can issue compulsory licences that allow someone else to produce patented products, if it's deemed necessary to the public interest, Iancu said.

He argued countries aren't issuing those licences because the vaccines aren't easy to produce without the input of the original manufacturer.

WHO says patents should be waived to get more vaccine made in more countries

4 years ago

Duration 0:53

There isn't enough COVID-19 vaccine getting to countries through the COVAX system, says the World Health Organization, so it's recommending an emergency waiver of medical patents to ramp up vaccine production in developing countries.

He also warned that without protection, companies "retreat into their trade-secrets shells," which slows progress via a lack of collaboration.

Iancu noted that roughly 10 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be produced by the end of the year.

"Before disrupting this incredibly complex intellectual property system we need to be really sure that we know exactly what we're doing here and we have the evidence that A, it's necessary and B, it actually will solve the problems," he said.

Export restrictions slowing distribution

Removing patents and IP protections won't solve the vaccine supply problem on its own, said Gian Gandhi of UNICEF, who acts as coordinator for COVAX, the global initiative aimed at ensuring equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines

"It's not really a patent issue that's stopping the scale of production, but actually forms of vaccine nationalism either to keep vaccines within borders, or to keep the components necessary for producing them within borders," he told Galloway.

The E.U., the U.S. and India have all imposed export restrictions on vaccines, as they try to manage low supply and rising outbreaks on their own territory.

UN chief criticizes countries for vaccine hoarding, export restrictions

3 years ago

Duration 10:04

In an exclusive interview with CBC News chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warns that the growing vaccine nationalism taking place by some countries puts the whole planet at risk and threatens to undermine the health of all people. Guterres also says an urgent, co-ordinated global vaccination plan is essential to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. NT on CBC News Network and CBC Gem.

That's hampered the efforts of COVAX. An analysis in the Guardian last week found only a fifth of AstraZeneca doses promised by COVAX to developing countries by May have been delivered;some countries havereceived none at all.

Until every country in the world has a high vaccination rate, the virus has the opportunity "to both replicate and frankly mutate," Gandhi said.

"Even a fully vaccinated population in a high-income country may be at risk from variants that evade the current vaccines," he said.

"Increasing the levels of coverage in developing countries makes sense both abroad, but certainly at home for the wealthier countries."

Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Kate Cornick and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin.

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