There's No Need to Extend the TRIPS Waiver
By Frank Cullen
The "public health emergency" surrounding Covid-19 expired on May 11. The Biden administration's decision effectively acknowledges that with ample supplies of vaccines and treatments, the virus is now a problem that the global community can manage without extraordinary measures.
But some members of the administration evidently didn't get the memo. The United States Trade Representative requested the International Trade Commission, the government agency tasked with advising the administration on matters of global commerce, investigate a proposal that'd gut intellectual property protections on Covid-19 treatments and diagnostic tests.
This unprecedented assault on intellectual property rights -- covering a wide variety of medicines and medical technologies -- would supposedly make it easier for developing countries to access life-saving Covid-19 drugs, at least according to proponents.
But they're gravely mistaken. The world is already awash in treatments. Waiving IP protections will do nothing to help patients. It'll only enrich our rivals and discourage biotech companies from investing the billions of dollars required to solve the next public health crisis.
The waiver would be completely useless because there are no IP-induced shortages for Covid-19 therapeutics and diagnostics.
Pharmaceutical companies have entered into more than 140 licensing and manufacturing agreements to increase global access to Covid-19 treatments.
Simply put, the waiver seeks to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
What the waiver would do is quash the development of additional Covid-19 countermeasures, from life-saving antiviral pills to rapid tests even more accurate than the ones we have. Firms currently investing in new Covid-19 tests and treatments will have no reason to continue their work if the IP rights for those products are preemptively nullified.
In the long term, an IP waiver would set a devastating precedent for U.S. innovators working to address crises far beyond Covid-19. Startups and inventors need secure intellectual property rights to raise funding and recoup their steep research and development costs, especially in America's life sciences industry. New drugs often cost more than $2 billion and can take more than a decade to make it to market.
Because of the high risks of innovating in the life sciences industry, the system thrives on reliability. The waiver would upend the entire patent system by setting the dangerous precedent that governments can eliminate IP protections whenever they declare an emergency. New companies will struggle to raise funding and innovate if the government can effectively invalidate their patents on a whim.
The waiver particularly threatens the United States' global economic competitiveness by handing over patented technology to our fiercest economic competitors. The waiver would allow all "developing countries" of the WTO, including China, to appropriate U.S. technology for their own gain.
For instance, the revolutionary mRNA technology behind numerous Covid-19 products can potentially treat cancer and other chronic diseases. Giving this innovative technology to China will seriously damage the United States' efforts to maintain its technological lead.
Some at Harvard's Kennedy School have already predicted China will surpass the United States in technological leadership in the next decade. There is no need to make the race even easier for China.
Strong patent protections have been fundamental to the global pandemic response. A public-private partnership between the United States government and pharmaceutical companies, with the help of IP protections, created a Covid-19 vaccine in record time.
To ensure the scientific community can respond similarly quickly to future crises, we must recognize IP protections as part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Frank Cullen is executive director of the Council for Innovation Promotion. This piece originally ran in the Dallas Morning News.
