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The benefits of the pharmaceutical industry are protected by a strength of patents that guarantee drug manufacturers a revenue stream until they expire. On Wednesday, Joe Biden broke decades of U.S. orthodoxy and cracked the wall.
Its administration decision to support a temporary waiver of Covid-19 vaccine patents sparked instant outrage in the pharmaceutical industry, which argues that the measure controls its intellectual property rights and will discourage American innovation while sending jobs abroad.
“Intellectual property is the vital element of biotechnology, it’s like oxygen for our industry,” said Brad Loncar, a biotechnology investor. “If you take it out, it doesn’t have a biotech sector.”
Biden’s chief business adviser, Katherine Tai, said that while the U.S. government still “strongly believes” in intellectual property protections, it supported the waiver of Biden’s patents. Vaccines against covid-19 to help boost world production of punctures.
The move occurs in some countries, including India, are struggling to cope with new waves of the virus, even while others have successfully developed vaccination campaigns that are causing infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
The waiver proposal was submitted to the World Trade Organization in October and has since been backed by more than 60 countries that say global vaccine production must be drastically increased to contain the virus. Washington’s support marks a key step in making the proposal a reality, and Tai said the United States would participate in negotiations to delve deeper into the details of the WTO waiver.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, told the Financial Times that the decision was a “monumental moment” in the fight against Covid-19. “I am not surprised by this announcement. That’s what I expected from President Biden’s administration. “
Still, the pharmaceutical industry did not expect it; the United States has tended to fiercely protect the intellectual property rights of domestic companies in trade disputes. Industry leaders described the decision as a blow to innovation, which would do little to boost global production as there is a shortage of manufacturing facilities and skilled employees.
“The steps of the administration here are very unnecessary and harmful,” said Jeremy Levin, president of the Bio Biotechnology Trade Association. “Securing vaccines quickly will not be the result and, even worse, it establishes a principle that companies that have invested in new technologies will run the risk of withdrawing them.”
The stakes of major vaccine manufacturers against Covid-19 were affected by the announcement. BioNTech’s Frankfurt-listed shares lost 14 percent on Thursday. Moderna and Novavax closed 3% and 6% in New York the day before.
Sven Borho, managing partner of OrbiMed Advisors, a healthcare investment company, said pharmaceutical executives feared the administration’s decision would set a precedent that would facilitate the suspension of patents in the future.
In the long run, they are concerned that this is a foot in the door: “Okay, we’ve done it with Covid-19, let’s do it with the next crisis and the next,” he said. of an anti-cancer patent to be invalidated. They fear it will be a mechanism that lays the groundwork for future action. “
Peter Bach, director of the Sloan Kettering Memorial Health Policy and Outcomes Center, said there was a possible compromise that faced the imminent need to contain the pandemic against the risk that drug manufacturers would be more careful when to invest in pioneering therapies in the future.
“If this action allows for more access and more people can save their lives today in 2021 and the consequence is on the way, we may not have a new gene therapy for 100 children, then this is the commitment worth discussing.” , said Bach. .
The battle for intellectual property rights is the first major international patent dispute since a clash over costly HIV treatments between drug manufacturers and several countries, including Brazil and South Africa, in the late 1990s.
Countries struggling to contain the epidemic wanted to make their own generic versions of HIV drugs, but the companies that developed them interpreted the moves as a breach of patent agreements, generating a lot of frustrating litigation. efforts to generate a supply of cheap pills.
Members of the pharmaceutical industry argue that the suspension of Covid-19 vaccine patents in an effort to increase overseas production will harm jobs in the U.S. biotechnology sector. The Donald Trump administration strongly opposed the resignation last year.
Levin said U.S. technology “could create jobs in America, but if it is transferred abroad, there will be significant harm to the creation of very high-quality jobs. [here]”.
The mRNA technology used in BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is being tested to treat other diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and pharmaceutical lobbyists have claimed that the suspension of their patents it would allow other countries to go through the advances of American research.
The long-term consequences are unclear. Umer Raffat, an analyst at Evercore ISI, noted that the resignation was not permanent and that other influential actors, including the EU and the UK, had not yet supported the taking of the Biden administration.
Borho, of OrbiMed, said: “This is a unique circumstance. I think this will ultimately be narrow and only for Covid-19 vaccines. I don’t think the Biden administration wants to undermine the extensive patents of the biotechnology or pharmaceutical industry. “
Proponents of the resignation applauded the U.S. government’s decision as an important step toward increasing global supply of Covid-19 vaccines.
“The pharmaceutical industry has said the pandemic is not time for business as always,” said Zain Rizvi, a specialist in drug access at Public Citizen. “Funded by billions of dollars from taxpayers, [vaccine makers] they have a moral imperative to stop opposing efforts aimed at expanding. . . production “.
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