Cheap Website Traffic

Why waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines is wrong

[ad_1]

IP has been the unsung hero, enabling dozens of research collaborations and manufacturing partnerships all over the world, often between competitors. Rivals have shared proprietary compounds, platforms and technologies to develop new vaccines in record times. Vaccine developers have joined forces with manufacturers all over the world – many of them commercial competitors – to boost manufacturing capacity.

These partnerships would not happen without the legal certainties provided by IP rights. Rip up the rules and the partnerships may crumble. The last thing the world needs at this delicate stage is a reshuffling of the deck.

Even more dubious is the notion implicit in the WTO proposal that there is spare manufacturing capacity that could be harnessed if only IP didn’t stand in the way. In reality, only a few countries have this advanced manufacturing capacity, and trying to build them in developing countries where they do not currently exist should not be the priority now.

“Most countries do not have industrial cell culture capacity or sterile fill-and-finish lines, and trying to start them from scratch is not a good use of time, money and effort. It would be like deciding that Switzerland needs to be self-sufficient in sushi,” says ex-pharmaceutical researcher and science writer Derek Lowe.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are based on mRNA, a new vaccine technology that is making its commercial debut in this pandemic. “There is no mRNA in manufacturing capacity in the world,” says Stephane Bancel, Moderna’s boss. “This is a new technology. You cannot go hire people who know how to make the mRNA. Those people don’t exist.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Cheap Website Traffic