Experts seriously doubt whether patent waivers for Covid-19 vaccines will ever happen

It has been more than a year since a milestone proposal has raised the issue of waiving the patent for the Covid mRNA vaccine. But many observers do not see the waiver of intellectual property rights (IP) for Covid vaccines as an effective way to stop the pandemic.

Proponents of patent waivers, such as Harsha Thirumurthy, an associate professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, argue that the question is at the heart of why vaccines are less available in lower-income countries.

“It limits the amount of production of this product or this vaccine,” Thirumurthy said, adding that he keeps the price “artificially high enough to limit the capabilities of other countries in the world.”

But critics argue that waiving patents will not automatically lead to improved global vaccine distribution.

Among those was Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates originally spoke against the waiver of a patent, emphasizing that in addition to patents, there are problems that need to be resolved first. Gates later reversed his position and now fully supports the temporary waiver of protection due to patents for the coronavirus vaccine.

“If there were a billion vaccines in the warehouse of a developing lab, it wouldn’t help us get back to normal,” said Heath Naquin, deputy prime minister and capital at the University City Science Center, a nonprofit research organization in Philadelphia. .

“The mere waiver of a patent doesn’t actually address these key issues in many developing countries that are not related to the recipe, but are related to the way you communicate it to people.”

However, experts on both sides of the debate seriously doubt whether the patent for the Covid-19 vaccine will ever be waived.

“I think we had the best hope for that last year when the proposal was presented to the WTO and was supported by the Biden administration,” Thirumurthy said.

“But we had European countries that opposed these patent waivers.”

Watch the video to learn more about why patents for vaccines exist and the current discussion of their impact on the Covida pandemic.