The European Union, the United States, India and South Africa have agreed on the granting of mandatory licensing to developing countries. However, it remains to be convinced all of the member countries of the World Trade Organization.
Le Monde with AFP
The lifting of patents on Vaccines against CVIV-19 may no longer be a utopia. The Chief of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, welcomed Wednesday, March 16 the “decisive progress made” by the European Union (EU), the United States, India and Africa South “about a derogation from the Agreement on Aspects of Trade Intellectual Property Rights for Vaccine Production Against CVIV-19”.
“It’s a big step forward,” she welcomed Ms. Okonjo-Iweala about the compromise between these four major players in the manufacture of vaccines, although she noted that the details of the compromise were Not all settled yet.
A few hours ago, Adam Hodge, spokesperson for the American representative for commerce, had announced “a compromise opening the way (…) to a concrete and meaningful result”. While highlighting – like many other observers – that consultations on the text, which has not been published yet, were still in progress.
This technical agreement must now be confirmed at the political level, according to the entourage of the French delegate to foreign trade, Franck Riester. According to the same source, the compromise on the table would only be applicable to developing countries, and only to those representing less than 10% of global annual vaccine exports against CVIV-19, excluding de facto China.
Convince other WTO Members
The compromise also does not have to dismantle the current intellectual property system, but to facilitate the granting of “mandatory licenses”, facing the Pandemic of Covid-19 but also for future sanitary seizures. In the context of the WTO agreements, there is a compulsory license, which makes possible the use of a patent by the public authorities without the authorization of its holder. This system plans to compensate the group at its origin.
Once the compromise is politically validated, the EU, the United States, India and South Africa will have to convince other WTO members, where decisions are made by consensus. But Switzerland, which houses large pharmaceutical laboratories, expressed many reluctance on the principle of a derogation from intellectual property rights.
Many developing countries, supported by NGOs and some international organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), claim a lifting of intellectual property rights to facilitate greater sharing of knowledge and rapid demultiplication of Vaccine production sites.
MSF reserves
The pharmaceutical lobby, represented by the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (IFPMA), is fighting against any draft derogation from intellectual property rights. It estimates that there are enough vaccines produced in the world (12 billion doses per year) and that it is necessary above all to accelerate the distribution. “Technology transfer goes far beyond the patent, it is based on trust, sharing of know-how and voluntary licensing”, said Wednesday.
WTO discussions on intellectual property and access to vaccines in poor countries have been launched by India and South Africa running 2020. Faced with the lack of progress, these two The same countries, to which the United States and the EU have joined, in December, launched a small group to negotiate a compromise.
In a statement, doctors without borders pointed out that the compromise contains “considerable restrictions”: “it is limited geographically, it covers only patents and does not deal with other barriers to intellectual property, such as Industrial Secrets. “” It is extremely worrying that the text (…) currently covers only vaccines, but not treatments or diagnoses, “also deplored Dimitri Eynikel, MSF.