Tai Asks ITC to Gather Input, Do Analysis on TRIPS Waivers for COVID Treatments, Tests
As World Trade Organization members continue to struggle to decide how to change the trade-related intellectual property waiver conditions, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asked the International Trade Commission to produce a study on how the global market for vaccines, diagnostics and treatment has been affected by the current approach on intellectual property. The USTR said stakeholders and members of Congress disagree, "even on basic questions around whether there is adequate global supply of diagnostics and therapeutics. These interested parties also diverge on whether extending these flexibilities to diagnostics and therapeutics would in fact improve access, particularly in non-high-income countries, or undermine innovation."
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She asked the ITC to explore the relationship between patent protection and innovation in health, and the relationship between patents and access to medicine in countries from low-income to high-income and points in between. She also asked ITC analysts to describe what countries have used compulsory licenses for production, importation or exportation of pharmaceuticals, or made attempts to do so, and what the result was, "including the effect on product access, innovation, and global health."
She asked analysts to describe what alternatives there are to compulsory licensing, such as voluntary licensing, private sector donations, government-to-government programs, and other funding programs for purchases, and how those approaches affected access to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics.
She asked the agency to complete its report by Oct. 17, 2023, and asked it to solicit public input on how the TRIPS Agreement limits access to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics, what success there has been in using TRIPS flexibilities, the location of jobs associated with the manufacturing of these products, and, she said, "the relationship between intellectual property protection and corporate research and development expenditures, taking into account other expenditures, such as share buybacks, dividends, and marketing."
She said she did not ask the ITC to make policy recommendations, but she did ask for public input on "to what extent further clarifications of existing TRIPS flexibilities would be useful in improving access to medicines."