One interesting topic I thought of in relation to IP law is IP and COVID-19 vaccines. As the wealthy countries of the world vaccinate their populations, even arriving at the stage of providing a third booster dose, developing nations lag significantly far behind in vaccination rates. This is partially due to supply issues as wealthy countries put down big money to secure their vaccine procurement contracts and hoard a large, outsized chunk of the global vaccine supply. This article, “Dose of Desperation,” outlines this exact problem in intricate detail. Canada, alongside other wealthy countries, bought up an outsized share of the global vaccine supply leaving poor countries to struggle to source the lifesaving medication. The Canadian government has acknowledged that the fight against COVID won’t be over unless the world en mass has access to vaccines. It seems to be that without widespread access to vaccines, new variants and outbreaks will continue to emerge putting the entire world at some level of risk. It will take a truly global effort to effectively end the COVID-19 pandemic. One question that has stuck with me through the course of these unprecedented times is, is it truly justified to provide IP in vaccines to the companies that have developed them when we as a global community are faced with a deadly virus that has taken the lives of millions? Currently, IP law prevents developing countries from making their own domestic, generic version of the vaccines. I understand that the rationale in providing IP in one’s creations is partially to incentivize inventors and scientists to innovate, but is a global pandemic a valid reason to ignore these goals of IP law? I wanted to explore whether there is a case to be made to suspend the patents for the vaccines so generic versions can be produced – would doing so actually have an effect and get vaccines out more broadly? Or would doing so still fail to meet the goal of providing vaccines more broadly, sooner?
Here is an interesting clip, CBC Clip, from the CBC that delves into these questions and outlines Doctors without Borders stance that patents should be suspended. Doctors without Borders’ argues this debate is cut and dry as it is about saving lives over saving systems (referring to IP law). The COVAX program that has multiple partners and contributors, mostly wealthy countries, was designed to increase vaccine availability without the suspension of patents. There has been buy-in from the US and many EU countries into COVAX but both the US and EU have initially been against suspension of patents. The article I linked above details how despite the program having some success, most countries have failed to meet their commitments on getting vaccines to developing countries as soon as possible. Also, there have often been shipments of vaccines that arrive at their destination expired and of no use. Is mass production of the vaccines stripped of IP the answer? Would there even be sufficient facilities to produce the vaccine generically? Doctors without Borders’ seem to think so and the organization has cited the slow and ineffective rollout to developing countries as a reason to suspend the patents. The Doctors without Borders representative in the clip, a co-inventor of the Hep C vaccine, acknowledges that the IP law system we have in place currently does incentivize innovation and is effective in a normal context, it’s just in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that has had widespread effects on society that even go beyond the illness (financial impacts, child development issues, etc) the requirements of the system should be outweighed by the impact of the pandemic. Despite it being unlikely every country will directly benefit from suspending the patents, any increased global production of vaccines helps – especially in places like India that have a large chunk of their population unvaccinated despite being a large producer of vaccines for wealthy countries.
About 10 months ago, it seemed the US had come around on this issue as President Biden has changed his stance to support a temporary waiver of the vaccine patents. Here is an article explaining the change in course: US reverses stance. However, at the time I am writing this post there is still no waiver as the US and the other 100+ countries in favour of waiving the patents have met stiff opposition from the UK and Germany for the most part. Here is an interesting article explaining the pushback and where this debate has gone over the last year: Vaccine Waiver Pushback.
Moderna has made statements they would share IP but only in a post-pandemic situation – what’s the point then? What Moderna Reveals About the Cruel Absurdity of “Innovation” Under Pharmaceutical Monopolies. In my opinion, we need to make a stronger push to get waivers for vaccines so developing countries can produce supply at home and increase vaccine availability. The pharmaceutical companies may want to complain and throw a fit but if we’re being honest, these companies, while doing the world a great service in inventing these vaccines, have been paid back for their contribution plenty of times over. These companies have made billions of dollars over the course of the pandemic and providing countries with the ability to produce generic vaccines to finally make a global push to draw this pandemic to a close seems like a no-brainer to me.
Communications Law