India and South Africa have jointly sought temporary waiver to all intellectual property and patent rights provisions that come under the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO on Covid vaccines, medicines, diagnostic kits, protective gears and other products required to fight the pandemic.
What is TRIPS Agreement?
TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement is a Trade-Related Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights signed by members of the WTO and came into effect in January 1995. It is a multilateral agreement on intellectual property rights.
While over 120 nations have supported the proposal, all 164 member countries of the WTO are yet to begin text-based negotiations on the matter in Geneva.
The US, after much dilly-dallying, agreed to support the move proposed by India and South Africa in October 2020. There are challenges to the negotiations. 164 member countries of WTO are yet to begin talks to discuss the IPR waiver on Covid vaccines. Experts say it could take a month to a year to have broad-based consensus. The General Council is the highest decision-making body of the WTO. The GC met on 5-6 May and TRIPS waiver proposal was one of the agenda items at the meeting. There have been several rounds of formal and informal meetings on this so far. A huge opposition has now come from German Chancellor Angela Merkel who believes suspending IPR for Covid vaccines will have serious implications on its production since the protection of the intellectual property is a source of innovation and it must remain so in the future. Russia has supported the move, the European Union (EU) has said it is “ready to discuss” the matter.
TRIPS waiver will be just beginning of a long process
According to many experts in the field, while the waiver solves the issue of obtaining the legal right to manufacture the vaccines of other companies, that of sharing the know-how of manufacturing the vaccine still remains unsolved. They claim waiving patents and giving access to the recipe are two different things. For instance, it completely depends on Pfizer, if they want to share how they manufacture the vaccine. But yes, they cannot sue you for infringing on their product. Many believe it will be an incredible opportunity for India to harness its manufacturing capacities to fulfil its own demand, followed by that of several countries across the world.
What happens if TRIPS waiver comes into effect
If all countries agree to the temporary TRIPS waiver on Covid products, several countries including India can start manufacturing the bouquet of Covid-19 vaccines instead of waiting for the pharma giants to allow domestic production. For instance, India can begin manufacturing the vaccines including the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine apart from the long-awaited vaccine from the US drugmaker, Pfizer.
The other countries will also become eligible to start production of made-in-India Covaxin, manufactured by Bharat Biotech and AstraZeneca’s Covishield.
According to health experts, the manufacturer that produces the vaccine holds great amount of technical know-how and working experience that are enormously important for any company manufacturing vaccine. The IP suspension is a step in the right direction but will probably be not enough in the absence of further support through tech transfer and guidance to set up the relevant infrastructure for quality vaccine manufacturing. Last October, Moderna had announced that it will not enforce Covid-related patents against those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic.