Biden Administration Backs Waiver of COVID-19 Intellectual Property

United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the Biden-Harris Administration’s support for waiving COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property in order to speed up vaccine distribution around the world.

“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” Tai said in a statement. “The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”

“We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen,” Tai continued. “Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved.”

The policy aims to bolster COVID-19 vaccine distribution around the world, Tai explained. 

“As our vaccine supply for the American people is secured, the Administration will continue to ramp up its efforts – working with the private sector and all possible partners – to expand vaccine manufacturing and distribution,” she said. “It will also work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines.”

Stephen J. Ubl, president and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), said in a statement that the Administration’s plan to waive intellectual property over these vaccines will hinder the worldwide fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the midst of a deadly pandemic, the Biden Administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety,” Ubl said. “This decision will sow confusion between public and private partners, further weaken already strained supply chains, and foster the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines.”

“It also flies in the face of President Biden’s stated policy of building up American infrastructure and creating jobs by handing over American innovations to countries looking to undermine our leadership in biomedical discovery,” he continued.

Ubl called for policy efforts that would address the “the real challenges” to the global vaccine roll-out, such as last-mile distribution and constrained access to raw materials.

“Biopharmaceutical manufacturers are fully committed to providing global access to COVID-19 vaccines, and they are collaborating at a scale that was previously unimaginable, including more than 200 manufacturing and other partnerships to date,” he said.

“In the past few days alone, we’ve seen more American vaccine exports, increased production targets from manufacturers, new commitments to COVAX and unprecedented aid for India during its devastating COVID-19 surge,” Ubl noted. “The biopharmaceutical industry shares the goal to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, and we hope we can all re-focus on that shared objective.”