US Announces Deal Struck on COVID Vaccine IP Waiver
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced that it has reached a compromise on a World Trade Organization intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines. According to a USTR spokesperson, no agreement on a precise text has been pinned down, but Reuters reported that the proposed agreement, the result of a compromise between the U.S., EU, India and South Africa, permits the use of "patented subject matter required for the production and supply of COVID-19 vaccines without the consent of the right holder to the extent necessary to address the COVID-19 pandemic."
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Some elements of the agreement still need sorting out, however, including whether the waiver would last for three or five years, Reuters said. Any agreement would have to be accepted by the WTO's 164 member countries.
Two groups were quick to criticize the agreement, positing that any sort of IP waiver would not help global access to vaccines. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce dubbed the compromise "fundamentally misguided," urging the rejection of the deal. "It ignores that the overwhelming problem is not vaccine production, it is last-mile delivery, and it will erode the ability of innovative companies to develop the cure for the next pandemic or global health threat," the Chamber said.
The American Economic Liberties Project also argued that any sort of waiver would not help global vaccine access. “Absent substantial improvements, the current approach would fail President Biden’s righteous mission of increasing access to vaccines to end the COVID crisis,” said Lori Wallach, director of Rethink Trade at the American Economic Liberties Project. “It seems to represent the lowest common denominator of EU fealty to Big Pharma by not waiving intellectual property monopolies and the U.S. insistence that only vaccines be considered despite the new lifesaving treatments that President Biden spotlights as critical to dealing with COVID.