<Anchor> After
U.S. government departments and President Biden announced that they supported the waiver of intellectual property rights for the corona vaccine, countries around the world continued to express their support. However, pharmaceutical companies are protesting that it is a wrong decision, so it will take a considerable amount of time before the IPR exemption is actually implemented.
This is Kim Yoon-soo, a correspondent from Washington.
<Reporter> When the
US position of exemption from intellectual property rights for the Corona 19 vaccine came out, countries around the world immediately welcomed.
French President Macron said he was totally in favor, and Russian President Putin, who owns the vaccines developed in-house, ordered to go one step further and consider exempting Russian vaccines from IPRs.
The European Union has also decided to enter into full-scale discussions on the exemption from intellectual property rights.
[Pon der Reien/European Commission Chairman: The European Union is also ready to discuss any proposals related to the Corona 19 crisis in an efficient and pragmatic manner.]
However, in order for the vaccine IP waiver to be implemented, 164 member states of the World Trade Organization Situations requiring full consent.
In addition, even if intellectual property rights are exempted, technology transfer is essential for vaccine production, and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Associations, to which Pfizer and others belong, launched a collective backlash, saying that the decision of the US administration was the wrong answer.
[Thurech/Bioentech Chief Scientific Officer: There are 50,000 steps in our vaccine process, and all processes must be performed accurately for efficient and safe vaccine production.]
It is pointed out that additional measures, such as establishing a vaccine hub, must be followed in order to prevent the vaccine IPR exemption from being limited to verbal immunity in a situation where the day is urgent.