WITH the US supporting the waiver of Covid-19 vaccine patents, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) believe other big economies will follow suit to boost the supply of doses.
The Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP), however, said that scrapping IP rights for Covid-19 vaccine will not resolve the production concerns.
“US has set a good example and it can influence others as well, in the spirit of saving humanity from the tragedy of this pandemic,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez told the BusinessMirror. “This is one way to address the global shortage of vaccines.”
The DTI chief wishes other big economies would adopt the patent waiver as well, even on a temporary basis. This way, he explained, patent owners can revive their ownership after the “emergency situation.”
“Better if not temporary. But that depends again on the patent owners,” he added.
Previously, however, Lopez told this newspaper that pharmaceutical firms should opt to secure voluntary licensing to produce Covid-19 doses instead despite the call of over 100 nations to remove IP protection for the vaccine. In securing a voluntary license, the patent holder is authorizing a generic company to produce patented articles, such as the Covid-19 doses.
His stance was in consideration of the locally implemented IP laws, free-trade deals with other countries and the Philippines’s commitment to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is a multilateral accord on IP covering copyright and related rights, trademarks, geographical indications, industrial designs and patents, among others.
The TRIPS agreement, which took effect on January 1, 1995, sets the minimum standards of IP protection, enumerates enforcement procedures and covers dispute settlement.
IPOPHL Director General Rowel S. Barba, in an interview with the BusinessMirror, agreed the “economic superpower” US can influence other countries in waiving the Covid-19 vaccine patent protection.
“We see a few pronouncements of support or consideration for the waiver hours after the Biden administration threw its support,” he said.
On innovation
But Barba argued that other economies, like Germany, will flag the potential damage of doing so to the health innovation and point out that supply chain should be the concern instead.
Germany recently nixed Washington’s move to support the Covid-19 vaccine patent waiver as this is seen to affect production. The European Union (EU) member country noted that IP protection encourages innovation.
“New supporters even acknowledged that the waiver will not be a ticket that guarantees supplies to developing countries and that setting patent-waiving measures in place and seeing results would take time that might not be with the times of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Barba added.
In a recent statement, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said they will take part in negotiations to waive the Covid-19 vaccine patent at the WTO.
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” Tai explained. “The Administration believes strongly in [IP] protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for Covid-19 vaccines.”
Earlier, US—along with the EU, Britain and Switzerland, among others—called for maintaining the IP rights for Covid-19 vaccines to encourage pharmaceutical firms to further their research and development.
Supply chain concern
PHAP, for its part, said the Covid-19 vaccine supply chain should be given focus instead to further the access to the doses, noting this is not an IP matter.
“We fully commit to the urgent and equitable access to safe and effective vaccines. However, we believe that a patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines is not the answer to what is a complex problem,” PHAP told the BusinessMirror.
The group stressed that an IP waiver will not increase vaccine production and will not solve the bottlenecks in the supply chain. In addition, such a move will not address the scarcity of raw materials and ingredients, it explained.
Instead, waiving patent protection for Covid-19 doses may do some harm to the industry, PHAP noted.
“A waiver will undermine our industry’s response to the pandemic, compromise safety, and disincentivize research and development which allowed us to immediately respond to the health crisis,” the group explained.
“The international IP system has given companies confidence to engage in more than 200 technology transfer agreements to expand delivery on Covid-19 vaccines based on unprecedented partnerships between vaccine industrialized and developing country vaccine manufacturers,” the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, where PHAP is a member, said, as cited by the group.
Dialogue
The pharmaceutical group is pushing for a dialogue and collaboration to hasten the inoculation of vaccines in the country.
It also called for support on the pharmaceutical industry as the sector continues to operate amid the pandemic. This, in addition to ensuring “uninterrupted supply of medicines” for Covid-19 and other diseases.
PHAP expressed its support for current government efforts in focusing the rollout to priority groups and initiative to work with vaccine manufacturers in expediting vaccine access and distribution.
The group said it “is one with the goal to end the Covid-19 pandemic that has affected many Filipinos, including us in the pharmaceutical sector.”