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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Biden Administration Supports The Waiver Of IP Protection On Covid Vaccines

Biden Administration Supports The Waiver Of IP Protection On Covid Vaccines

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Just tweeted —

It’s not clear to me how much of a problem this is, which is why I haven’t said much about it, but now it’s no longer an issue to be fought over in the media. The Biden administration is focusing on the reality – getting the vaccines to people.

Open Thread!

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  2. 2.

    Major Major Major Major

    This is good! But yeah, I don’t know either how many of the production constraints are hard supply chain bottlenecks, as opposed to a question of IP. (I think you have a post about this recently?)

  3. 3.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Major Major Major Major: It’s a real hot-button issue, and I don’t know enough to say much definitively. I posted about production a few days ago.

    I’ve seen nobody address which manufacturers are holding back because of IP issues or how many doses that might free up. It’s possible that some of the Indian manufacturers don’t want to invest in the renovations and new equipment until they see a route to using it after the pandemic. Which a waiver for the duration of the pandemic might not address.

    Vaccines have very different production requirements from other pharmaceuticals, and the mRNA vaccines have yet another set of requirements. For many years, vaccine development and production have received short shrift from Big Pharma because they aren’t a big profit center. One dose per person every year or more. But ED enhancers? Every night, baby!

    It’s going to be interesting to see how much resistance Big Pharma and smaller companies that supply part of the ingredients put up to this. Moderna is part of the way there, but they have suppliers who may not be. If I were them, I’d go along, but their history is of being very protective of their IP. Too protective, which is part of what drives up the price of insulin, for example.

  5. 5.

    Benw

    @Cheryl Rofer: if it’s not a big $ maker, seems like a no brainer from a PR/goodwill perspective to give out the formula for just one vaccine

  6. 6.

    Old School

    @WaterGirl:

    Per Wikipedia:

    Text-based negotiation refers to the process of working up the text of an agreement which all parties are willing to accept and sign up to. Negotiating parties may begin with a draft text, consider new textual suggestions and work to find the middle ground among various differing positions.

  7. 7.

    Old School

    Per Wikipedia:

    Text-based negotiation refers to the process of working up the text of an agreement which all parties are willing to accept and sign up to. Negotiating parties may begin with a draft text, consider new textual suggestions and work to find the middle ground among various differing positions.

  8. 8.

    Gravenstone

    @Benw: Formula is one thing. Technology is likely another. And if the mRNA approach becomes as widespread as it appears it might, I imagine some companies will be loathe to share proprietary methods to future competitors. I suspect that will be the most difficult needle to thread in these negotiations.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    just fewer than otherwise.

    That’s why the stocks are at session lows. I don’t know what’s silly about it.

    ETA: My guess is that they will rise again, or at least stabilize.

  12. 12.

    Spanky

    @Cheryl Rofer: Trust the stock market to always stampede in fear at the slightest whiff of loss. Any kind of loss.

    Stocks will bounce back within the week.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    I hope this takes wing (fin) because investigating Trump’s Interior Department will uncover deep corruption.

    On Monday May 3rd, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), the West Coast’s largest trade organization of small-scale commercial fishermen and women, signed on to a letter asking Representative Katie Porter (D – Ca 45th) in her capacity as Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and Chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, to open an investigation into Reclamation’s manipulation of government cost accounting standards and its own longstanding criteria for allocating costs owed by Central Valley Project water and power contractors (Contractors).

    The Central Valley Project Improvement Act, Public Law 102-575 Title XXIV (1992) (CVPIA) “made unprecedented changes to federal reclamation law. First, the CVPIA made environmental restoration a purpose of the Central Valley Project (CVP). Second, it mandated a comprehensive suite of environmental restoration actions, among them restoration of the rights of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in the Trinity River fishery, which the United States holds in trust, and which West Coast sport and commercial fishing enterprises, among others, have an interest. The CVPIA also established restoration measures for fisheries and wildlife refuges in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds of California’s Central Valley. Third, the CVPIA required the Contractors, not the taxpayers, to pay for restoration as their cost of doing business.”

    We believe such an investigation would show the changes in accounting standards resulted in the “shift of at least $400 million in current debt from the [Central Valley Water] Contractors to Federal taxpayers.” This, in our view, results in an unconscionable financial windfall to the Contractors, whose activities continue to have severe and adverse impacts on California’s salmon populations, our members and dependent fishing communities; such impacts to be magnified under the current drought conditions.

    “Reclamation’s illegal action has resulted in over promising and undercharging for publicly owned water supplies, said Mike Conroy, PCFFA’s Executive Director. “Rescinding these bloated water contracts is essential to protecting fishing jobs and food sources for communities in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. “

    Additionally, “a series of Interior Department memoranda [were issued] that wrongfully and unlawfully declared the environmental restoration mandates of the CVPIA to have been fulfilled.” Clearly this is not the case.

    “The Administration has the opportunity, the obligation, to immediately and thoroughly overturn the actions which stick taxpayers with past debts incurred by Central Valley Contractors. To claim that CVPIA restoration activities are fulfilled is laughable,” added Mike Conroy, Executive Director of PCFFA. “Failing to charge for this required mitigation and restoration has ensured the anadromous fish doubling goals have not been met.”

    And of course, camera time for Katie Porter and her white board. :-)

  15. 15.

    Barbara

    I suspect that manufacturers are unlikely to go along with this for countries that have the wherewithal right now to produce vaccines and who might be perceived as calling for this for future competitive reasons. In other words, India’s current crisis isn’t caused by inability to produce vaccines and won’t be solved by dropping IP protections, and in the long run it already has the capacity to produce vaccines — it was planning to do so for the rest of the developing world until it became clear that it needed every vaccine it produced for its own population. On the other hand, giving South Africa, Brazil, and many other countries the ability to manufacture their own vaccines would definitely help bring the pandemic under control in countries where vaccine supply is basically at the mercy of other nations. And I still think that there is a risk of the worst case scenario, countries spending a lot of resources to manufacture vaccines and failing at some point or another.

  18. 18.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Pfizer, Biontech, Novavax, Moderna shares plunge to session lows…

    Plunge only applies to today’s market. They are all still at/near record highs. Actually looks like the day traders were left high & dry when volume suddenly pfizzled and they had to dump today’s buying.​
    ETA: Ex-Dividend Date tomorrow for Pfizer, and Earnings Date for Moderna. So completely expected price behaviors anyway.

    ETA: minor edits

  19. 19.

    Anoniminous

    There are more mRNA vaccines in the pipeline.  For example, Moderna has one for influenza and another for AIDS.  It’s not inconceivable an mRNA vaccine for some cancers could be on the horizon.  And then there is mRNA medicine delivery using extracellular vesicles which is only at the bare beginnings of investigation.

    Companies aren’t going to give-up their entire future just because.

  24. 24.

    VeniceRiley

    What is the exposure to getting fleeced on future mRNA vaccines once the tech is widely distributed?

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl Rofer: To me, making big bank on vaccines in a pandemic feels like it’s in the same neighborhood as war profiteering, so I don’t think they have much ground to stand on as they complain.

    Plus, big pharma like Pfizer should be thanking their lucky stars that this has helped repair their below-ground-level reputations with the general public.  That should be profit enough!

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    @MattF: I’m not sure where the appropriate place my reaction should fall on the continuum.  I am alternating between “interesting” and “holy fuck”.

  33. 33.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Random thought: it seems the right incentive here might be to have some reimbursement program for the vaccines giving up patent protection, where the overall winner in doses manufactured and delivered without royalties gets the highest payout. I mean, make sure there’s a pot of money for everyone – you don’t ever want to say “give up 100% of your royalties because we said so” – but make the #1 or 1&2 top doses delivered, royalty free, prize worth enough that it’s worth risking a few gambles, like helping some of the less wealthy countries actually get people vaccinated.

    The Biden administration could also make a grand show of pushing back against participation of vaccine distributors who didn’t provide efficacy and safety reporting early on – boy, the Republicans would have a field day between “he’s putting pressure on China (which the Trumpsuckers love) and Russia (which the Trumpsuckers hate) so how do we say he’s a horrible human being, trying to destroy every aspect of American life?”

  34. 34.

    dm

    @Anoniminous: “mRNA” is not what’s patented nor patentable.  It’s *this* configuration of mRNA for *this* purpose.  Future mRNA vaccines will still be protected even if the patents for COVID vaccines are waived (I am not a lawyer, I suppose the law might surprise me on this).

    This is why Moderna waived the IP rights for their vaccine a while back (of course, it was a moderately empty gesture because there were a lot of other patents in the way).

    I suppose the company with the patent on the liposome delivery system might be one that would see their future mRNA prospects dim.

  35. 35.

    matt

    I bet patent protections were in place long enough to give the rights holders an insurmountable head start.

  37. 37.

    different-church-lady

    now it’s no longer an issue to be fought over in the media

    I am increasingly bugged by the idea that all of our current social conflicts are being driven by the media believing that conflict is the route to profitability.

  39. 39.

    different-church-lady

    IT’S LIKE BIDEN IS MORE SOCIALIST THAN THE GODDAMNED PANTSY-ANSTS TWITTER SOCIALISTS!!!

    (DCL + SOME VACCINE AND A LOT OF OTHER STUFF…)

  40. 40.

    Ken

    @Anoniminous: The entirety of the financial press could be run over by a bus and the only result would be a slight, but still significant, rise in the global IQ.

    We would also lose the daily Mad-Libs they play, based on the template  “(category) stocks were (adverb) (direction) today on the news that (random event)“.

    Tech stocks were sharply up today on the news that baseball is re-evaluating the designated hitter rule.

  41. 41.

    sdhays

    @Cheryl Rofer: Biden’s team knows all of this, so I expect that they have thoughts on addressing these other challenges. I wonder how much more could have been ramped up in 2020 with competent American leadership.

  42. 42.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @sdhays: I’m concerned that when this doesn’t make a difference in India or Brazil, there will be more recriminations.

    The fact is that not much will make a difference in India or Brazil for months or more. We can send, and are sending, humanitarian help in the form of oxygen and hospital supplies, and those will save a few lives. But once the virus is that badly out of control, there’s not much anyone can do.

    The fact is, as Derek Lowe says in his thread at 36, vaccine production is limited. It will take months to build additional capacity.

    We shall see if this helps. But I have my doubts.

  43. 43.

    J R in WV

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I remember reading (or perhaps hearing on MSNBC, Rachael or Chris in the evenings) that we could be landing C-5As full of vaccine in every airport in India, and it would take months to make a difference in the rate of infection and subsequent death.

    A C-5A is the largest cargo plane in the US inventory and could deliver millions of doses, if we had that many available to deliver, which we don’t. No one does.

    India’s problem is like ours with the former guy, he (Modi) allowed the virus to run rampant through his nation with no encouragement for the people to stay home, no program to deliver food to people sheltering in place, no mask requirements, not only allowing giant religious gatherings but encouraging them even as it was obvious that they would be super-spreader events.

    Sort of like spring break, but for many times as many people, more crowded than our beaches. Amazing to see the video of those crowds, pressed together, chanting and singing, spreading droplets laden with viral particles…

    I hope Modi reaps what he has sown in the crowds. I’m sorry for the people of India whom he is riding into the ground. I have many friends from India who came here to work with us, I hope their families came behind them to be safer here, now that the former guy is out of work. That was all in the long ago now that I’m an old…

    ETA:

    Not to mention the lack of planning to provide O2 to hospitals, gloves, masks, gowns, etc. No planning of any sort to cope with anything at all. Just party like — weil like nothing was wrong at all, things should just go on like always and no one would suffer and die at all.

    Oops. We came so close to that end right here…

    And evidently many of the Q folks, and RWNJ fools believe that the tragedy in India and Brazil is another hoax. We shouldn’t take any of that into account, it isn’t the fate we avoided by the skin of our teeth. Just more mainstream news hoax, because it isn’t on their news feed from hell. Good grief, Charley Brown.

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