Corona: We are not allowed to release the patents for the vaccines

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There is no doubt: vaccines are our most powerful weapon in the fight against the corona pandemic.

But with this weapon of all things, ammunition is running out.

It is almost a miracle that several effective vaccines were developed in the record time of ten months.

But the first miracle has not yet followed a second: The miraculous increase in vaccines so that there would be enough for everyone immediately has not yet taken place.

Immediately there is talk of market failure.

If it is not possible to provide a sufficient supply of vaccines, although the demand is greater than for almost any other good in the world, then, the critics concluded, the invisible hand of the market must have fallen asleep - the state should be fathered fix it now.

The demands culminate in the fact that the state should immediately collect and release the patents of the manufacturers.

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The logic behind this seems captivating: Without patent protection that prevents copying of intellectual property, production of vaccines against the coronavirus could start immediately anywhere in the world.

Only the pharmaceutical industry would be left behind.

But since the vaccines - also funded with state funds - are a public good anyway, that would be bearable and basically only the overdue reparation for the trillion profits of the past years and decades.

Only a fraction is successful

Unfortunately, the reality is not that simple.

Pharmaceutical research is risky.

Only a fraction of the many projects from which new drugs are to emerge are actually ready for the market.

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Companies like Biontech, CureVac and Moderna burned a lot of money over the years before they got where they are today with their mRNA technology.

The companies do this voluntarily, you don't have to regret them.

If their research is successful, both sides benefit: the patients for whom an innovative drug opens up new therapeutic options;

and the companies that, thanks to patent protection, can be sure that they will earn money with what they have developed.

In a global pandemic, different laws may apply.

Everyone agrees that vaccination, the miracle weapon, can only work if a sufficient percentage of the world's population receives it.

This explicitly includes developing and emerging countries, even if the industrialized nations' first-name policy has suggested otherwise.

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However, simply revoking the patents, as a growing number of countries and organizations are demanding, would not change the acute vaccine shortage.

Because it is not the protection of intellectual property that stands in the way, but the limits of production.

The manufacture of vaccines is more complex than that of many other drugs.

Even at the pharmaceutical site in Germany, it is not easy to ramp up production as quickly as would be necessary in view of the dramatic global circumstances.

Punishment would be a devastating signal

Biontech and CureVac are good examples: Both companies have teamed up with large partners.

Nevertheless, it will still be months before plants are set up, processes validated and procedures optimized so that the billionth vaccine dose actually leaves the factory.

Not because the companies didn't want to be different, but because they couldn't do anything else.

The assumption that this complex technology can be quickly copied in countries that do not even have adequate cooling logistics is therefore an illusion.

Quite apart from the fact that it would be a devastating signal to punish precisely those companies that took the risk of developing vaccines by revoking their patents.

The solution must therefore be different.

It reads technology transfer via cooperation.

That, in turn, has long been happening, as the growing number of alliances shows.

Above all, there is the British company AstraZeneca, which cooperates with the Indian Serum Institute.

And yes, much more has to be done in this regard.

However: The pharmaceutical industry of all things is even ahead of most countries.

Just remember the Covax initiative.

Their former plan to ensure a fair distribution of vaccines worldwide has so far failed due to the vaccine nationalism of wealthy countries.

It is up to the states to change something about this - and not to intervene in the patent sovereignty of companies.

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This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG.

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Source: Welt am Sonntag