US supported WTO patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines after India, South Africa, others agreed to rework proposal

To get the United States to extend its support to a move initiated at the World Trade Organization to waive off the Intellectual Property Rights protection on the anti-Covid-19 vaccines, India and South Africa had to agree to rework the proposal for the exemption and narrow down its scope.

India and South Africa may submit the reworked proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) within the next few weeks, thus setting the stage for commencement of the negotiation on the final text of the exemption to the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection for the anti-Covid-19 vaccines.

The focus of the proposal will continue to be ensuring “equitable, affordable and timely access” for all to the antidote against the virus, but it will be reworked to address the concerns of the US and some other western nations, which feared that the scope of the suggested waiver from the IPR protection was unnecessarily broad and might hurt the interest of the pharmaceutical companies, a source in New Delhi told DH on Friday.

Read: TRIPS waiver for Covid-19 vaccine: WTO chief urges proponents to submit revised proposal soon to start talks

The US Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, of late announced the support of President Joe Biden’s administration to the proposal for temporarily waiving the IPR protections for the antidotes against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The proposal, which was first mooted by India and South Africa at the WTO in October 2020, is now officially sponsored by 58 nations and supported by over 60 others. It wants the WTO members to waive four categories of IP rights – copyright, industrial designs, patents and undisclosed information under the Agreement of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) until the majority of the world population receives effective vaccines and develops immunity to Covid-19.

The erstwhile US administration led by Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump was opposed to it. So was the United Kingdom, several other western nations and the European Union. The reversal of the stand by the US, however, now prompted the other naysayers to come around and indicate that they too would review positions on the issue.

The Biden Administration, however, changed its position, only after its senior officials were assured by their interlocutors in Indian and South African governments that the proposal for waiver at the WTO would be reworked to address at least some of the concerns of the pharmaceutical companies of the US and other western nations, said the source, who is aware of New Delhi’s engagements with Washington D.C. on the issue.

Read: Countries need Covid vaccines now, and patent waivers won’t deliver them

Tai said that the negotiation on the text of the waiver would take time as the WTO worked on the basis of consensus among the members.

The US Trade Representative and his Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, are learnt to have conveyed to their Indian and South African interlocutors that it would be difficult for the Biden Administration to support the move for exemption of the IPR protection on anti-Covid-19 vaccines, unless they reworked the proposal to address the concerns of its pharmaceutical companies, at least to a certain extent.

Tai earlier this week received a letter from a group of 12 Republican Party’s members in the US Congress, asking her not to support the move at the WTO for the IPR waiver on the anti-Covid-19 vaccines, as the proposal was “extraordinarily broad and unnecessary”.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Association too stated that the proposed IPR waiver would not lead to faster research and development or access to anti-Covid-19 vaccines and drugs, but would undermine confidence in what had proven to be a well-functioning system.