Patent release: "More political theater than substance" OLD: "The most important hurdles are not the patents"

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Last October, India and South Africa submitted a proposal to suspend patent rights for corona vaccines worldwide.

Now, with the USA, the first major industrial nation has jumped on this bandwagon.

The Biden government has announced that it will support the release of patents.

A step that many countries whose companies have developed vaccines have so far refused.

To protect your own industry.

But now that the US has built up considerable moral pressure and has taken on a leadership role, other countries are under pressure to act.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already announced that the association of states, in which some vaccine manufacturers are based, is also open to such interference with the property rights of European companies.

But why is this initiative coming now, when many industrialized countries are still struggling to provide their own population with sufficient vaccine?

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In fact, the US is also acting out of self-interest, as US Trade Representative Katherine Tai made clear on Wednesday.

"The vaccines for the American people are secured," said Tai, "now we will endeavor to improve access to vaccines elsewhere as well." In a global pandemic, real protection against infection does not come about when the own population is vaccinated.

In a networked world, the virus is repeatedly brought in from the outside as long as there is no herd immunity worldwide.

"Surprising advance"

For Europe, however, this uncertainty among the pharmaceutical companies concerned comes at an inopportune time. Finally, they are still struggling to expand their capacity to meet European needs. Von der Leyen hastened to point out in a tweet that the EU has so far not only acted selfishly and that EU companies have already exported more than 200 million vaccine doses.

Biden's advance is surprising in that it is usually high-tech nations like the USA and EU countries that advocate international protection of intellectual property.

Only the technical lead secures the industrial nations their jobs.

The US trade representative Tai justifies the fact that the most important western industrial nation is now campaigning for the watering down of this principle by stating that “extraordinary circumstances” require “extraordinary measures”.

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In fact, the move was controversial in the White House.

Significantly, according to the Washington Post, Minister of Economic Affairs Gina Raimondo did not take part in the crucial meeting because she had spoken out against a patent release.

Apparently, with the decision, Biden has given in to pressure from the left wing of his party.

For example, left winger Bernie Sanders and New York MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had campaigned for it.

Both now welcomed the government's decision.

But Ocasio-Cortez wants more: "Let's tackle insulin next," she tweeted.

If there is a dam break, will the next one soon follow?

That is what the critics fear.

Patent law is supposed to stimulate innovation because companies that invest a lot of money in research are protected from cheap copiers.

If companies that have developed a vaccine under high pressure and at high risk are deprived of their patent rights, then in the next pandemic this could mean that companies are less willing to take high investment risks.

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“The Biden administration shouldn't support abolishing intellectual property rights,” criticized Republican Richard Burr, deputy chairman of the Senate Health Committee, “because it undermines the very kind of innovation we are relying on to address this pandemic to bring to an end. "

There are also doubts as to whether the moral gesture of a patent release will actually lead to a rapid supply of vaccine to developing countries.

"This is more political theater than substance," said Brent Saunders, long-time head of a biotech company, the Washington Post.

Because it would take years to build new factories to make vaccine.

"If the government wanted to be helpful, it would encourage the expansion of the production capacity of existing companies," said Saunders.

Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain had already admitted in an interview with CBS on Sunday that intellectual property rights were only part of the problem. "In fact, production is the biggest problem," said Klain, referring to ongoing problems at the Emergent BioSolutions vaccine plant in Baltimore. The company has patent rights for the production of vaccines, but had to destroy 15 million doses of vaccine due to technical problems and contamination.

In fact, it could be many months before the patents are released worldwide.

Intellectual property rights are regulated in the TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

A patent release would be negotiated in this context and all 164 signatory states would have to agree.

The draft of India and South Africa so far available is very extensive and also includes patents for treatment agents, test kits, ventilators, protective clothing and other products for combating corona.

"The most important hurdles are not patents"

This is currently not subject to approval. For their part, the industrialized nations will only grant narrowly defined patent releases. The US trade representative Kai has already announced that the "text negotiations" could be long. According to experts, this could even last until the next WTO ministerial conference in November.

But even then, the way would not be free. "The most important hurdle to expanding vaccine production is not the patents," says Lisa Larrimore Quelette, professor at Stanford and an expert in patent law. to set up a new production facility and get it up and running. ”She points out that the manufacturer Moderna already released the patent rights for its corona vaccine in October, but other companies have not yet been able to manufacture the vaccine themselves.

"The knowledge that is disclosed in patent applications is often not enough on its own to enable a third party to actually replicate a vaccine," write health experts on the biotechnology blog "Bill of Health" at Harvard Law School.

"Vaccines are biological products and their relative complexity makes them highly dependent on specific production processes and practices, many of which are not listed in a patent."

In plain language: In order to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines, third-party companies need the active and voluntary cooperation of the pharmaceutical companies that developed the patents.

However, their interests are severely damaged by the patent release.

Which is unlikely to be conducive to willingness to cooperate.