May 6, 2021

expert reaction to Biden administration support for waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines

The U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai released a statement today announcing the Biden-Harris Administration’s support for waiving intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 vaccines.

Steve Bates OBE, Chief Executive of the Bioindustry Association, said:

“This is not a panacea. Just handing countries governments a recipe book without the ingredients, safeguards, infrastructure and sizable workforce with the high skills needed to deliver safe and effective vaccines, will not speedily deliver help to all those that need it. IP rights weren’t the practical problem to scaling up global vaccine production and waiving them isn’t a simple solution to what is a wicked problem. The innovative life sciences industry has been a strong partner to get us where we are today – with UK collaboration leading the world in AstraZeneca/Oxford University in production and distribution globally.

“Given that text-based talk at the WTO will now proceed for months – my question to those who see this as the solution is how and when will this result in additional doses being administered around the world?”

https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2021/may/statement-ambassador-katherine-tai-covid-19-trips-waiver

Declared interests

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