The battle to lift vaccine patents rages on at the WTO
Audio 03:39
South Africa and India are trying to adjust the existing law to facilitate the implementation of a partial lifting of licenses, for vaccines but also for all health products so sought after in the face of a pandemic.
(Illustrative photo) © Fred SCHEIBER AFP
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
8 mins
To facilitate access to anti-covid vaccines, South Africa and India are campaigning for the lifting of patents.
The question deeply divides the World Trade Organization, it will be on the agenda again this Wednesday in Geneva.
A losing battle?
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This urgent and Homeric battle began in October 2020. Since then, a large majority of WTO member countries, around 100 - out of 164 member states, in Africa in particular, and in developing areas in general, have rallied together to this initiative.
Outside, the director general of the WHO or the Vatican, also approve.
In the name of therapeutic efficacy and the duty of humanity.
But these moral and scientific authorities are no match for the interests of Western laboratories, defended by their governments.
And as the rule of unanimity prevails within the WTO, in the face of opposition from the United States, the European Union, Australia or Norway, it is highly unlikely that this request will succeed, explains an internal source at the WTO.
This fight of the south against the north is lost in advance?
South Africa and India have already won a first round by obtaining a large membership.
By continuing discussions at the WTO, they are trying to modify existing law to facilitate the implementation of a partial lifting of licenses, for vaccines but also for all health products so sought after in the face of a pandemic, we saw it for example for respirators.
The legal and economic arguments deployed by the laboratories do not hold, according to them, they remind us that the lifting of intellectual property rights does not rhyme with free, the laboratories will be compensated.
History also reminds us that the patent is not automatic, the inventors of the polio vaccine refused it to facilitate the dissemination of their discovery, and that did not prevent manufacturers from earning a living by producing it. in large scale.
What are the arguments of the industrialists?
The patent makes it possible to promote a discovery which required a large investment.
No question of giving it up.
As the data is public, other researchers can therefore work on this basis, even if the inventor retains the rights for twenty years, the patent therefore accelerates innovation.
Manufacturers also recall that the WTO already provides for an exemption in very specific cases.
This is referred to as a “compulsory license”.
In the name of the public interest, an industrialist is "obliged" to manufacture a product that a country is sorely lacking.
A legal quibble because in fact, this device is so complex that its application is extremely rare.
This exemption has only been granted once to date: AIDS drugs were produced in Canada on behalf of Rwanda in 2007.
Is the new WTO director in favor of the lifting of licenses?
Nigerian Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala pleads for a third way.
To speed up production, it recommends instead dialogue between governments, NGOs and manufacturers to achieve general production as quickly as possible.
Transferring know-how and increasing production capacities will also give concrete and rapid results.
However, this third pragmatic path does not end the debate.
The intellectual property rights of health products were already contested during the last major global health crisis, that of AIDS.
And South Africa had already succeeded in moving the lines: it was under its influence that compulsory licenses were established.
This mechanism must now be made more flexible in order to make it operational.
In short
The European Union wants to double its production of semiconductors.
The Commission confirmed this objective yesterday.
European production is expected to jump from 10 to 20% of the world market for electronic chips.
The current shortages are a reminder of how crucial it is to control your supply.
Europe intends to devote 20% of its recovery plan to the digital economy.
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