Waiving Covid-19 Vaccine Patents
Source : PIB
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Why in News ?

US would support Waiving Covid-19 Vaccine Patents

• The statement has important implications because doing away with intellectual property rights will pave the way for cheaper versions of the vaccine to enter the market and also scale up production.

Key Facts

• A temporary waiver of certain provisions of the intellectual property rights under a World Trade Organization (WTO)  agreement would be an important step to enable the scaling up of manufacturing and the timely availability of  affordable COVID19 vaccines and essential medical products.
• India and South Africa last year proposed a relaxation in the norms of the TRIPS agreement to ensure quick and affordable access to vaccines and medicines for developing countries.
• The demand had also been raised by human rights bodies and global advocacy groups.
• Lobbying by Pharmaceutical Companies
  • The appeals to do away with intellectual property rights have been unsuccessful so far in the face of lobbying by powerful pharmaceutical companies.

Need for Waive

• Only drug companies which own patents are authorised to manufacture Covid vaccines.
• A lifting of patent will allow the recipes to be shared and there will no longer be an embargo basically once the formula is shared any company which possesses the required technology and infrastructure can produce vaccines.
• This will lead to cheaper and more generic versions of Covid vaccines.
• It will also mean two things  vaccines will be more affordable and this will be a big step in overcoming vaccine shortage.
• At a time when many people across India are struggling to get vaccines and shortages are being reported from many states there is a unanimous agreement on the fact that there is a need to scale up production.

Opposing the lifting of patents

• Drug manufacturers and governments in the US, UK and Europe have been strongly opposing the patent waiver.
• Pharmaceutical industry has been arguing that innovation as well as vaccine quality and safety depend on maintaining exclusive intellectual property rights.
  • Further arguing that intellectual property rights are important because of the money and effort that goes into research and development.
• Lifting of patents would be a compromise on control of safety and quality standards for vaccine manufacturing.
  • Allow countries such as Russia and China to exploit the mRNA technology to their advantage.
• These drug companies, which enjoy a monopoly on individual Covid vaccines worth billions of dollars in annual sales

Major Opposing Factors
1. Innovation as well as vaccine quality and safety may Compromise
2. Loss monopoly on individual Covid vaccines
3. Russia and China to exploit the mRNA technology
4. Money and effort that goes into research and development

WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips)

• The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization.
• The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property (IP).
• It frames the IP system in terms of innovation, technology transfer and public welfare.

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