(Geneva) A compromise for a waiver of intellectual property rights on anti-COVID-19 vaccines has been found between four major manufacturing players, the WTO has welcomed, calling on other member countries to be convinced.
Posted at 7:27 p.m.
Noting that the details of the compromise are not yet fully ironed out, World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Wednesday highlighted the “decisive progress made” by the European Union, the United States, India and South Africa “regarding a waiver of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for the production of COVID-19 vaccines”.
“It’s a big step forward,” she said.
A few hours earlier, Adam Hodge, spokesperson for the US Trade Representative, had announced “a compromise paving the way […] towards a concrete and significant result”.
While emphasizing – like several other observers – that consultations on the text, which has not yet been published, were still in progress.
In the United States, the Chamber of Commerce has already expressed its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rights.
This technical agreement must now be confirmed at the political level, according to the entourage of the French Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Franck Riester.
According to the same source, the compromise on the table would only apply to developing countries, and only to those representing less than 10% of annual global exports of COVID-19 vaccines, de facto excluding China.
The compromise is also not intended to dismantle the current intellectual property system, but to facilitate the granting of “compulsory licenses”, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic but also for future health crises.
Within the framework of the WTO agreements, there is a compulsory license, making it possible for the public authorities to use a patent without the authorization of its holder. A system that plans to compensate the group at its origin.
“Considerable Restrictions”
Once the compromise has been validated politically, the EU, the United States, India and South Africa will have to convince the other members of the WTO, where decisions are taken by consensus.
However, Switzerland, which is home to major pharmaceutical laboratories, has repeatedly expressed its strong reluctance to the principle of derogation from intellectual property rights.
Many developing countries, supported by NGOs and certain international organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), are calling for the lifting of intellectual property rights to facilitate greater sharing of knowledge and the rapid multiplication of production sites. vaccines.
On the other hand, the pharmaceutical lobby, represented by the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (IFPMA), is fighting against any project to derogate from intellectual property rights, and believes that there are enough vaccines produced in the world (12 billion doses per year currently) and that distribution must above all be accelerated.
“Technology transfer goes far beyond patents, it is based on trust, sharing of know-how and voluntary granting of licenses,” the organization said on Wednesday.
Discussions at the WTO on intellectual property and access to vaccines in poor countries were launched by India and South Africa during 2020.
With no real progress occurring, those same two countries, joined by the US and the EU, launched a core group in December to broker a compromise.
In a statement, Médecins sans frontières pointed out that the compromise contains “considerable restrictions”: “it is geographically limited, it only covers patents and does not address other obstacles to intellectual property, such as industrial secrets”. .
“It is extremely worrying that the text […] currently only covers vaccines, but not treatments or diagnostics,” also lamented Dimitri Eynikel of MSF.