In October, two University of Pennsylvania scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their research on the technology underpinning the COVID-19 vaccines. Their inspiring work is just the tip of the iceberg.
Over the past three and a half years, countless scientists across the state jumped into action, researching COVID-19 and the potential tests, treatments, and vaccines aimed at abating it. Their work helped stem the tide of death and illness brought on by the virus and enabled world economies to re-energize in its aftermath. Unfortunately, I fear our nation may soon make a short-sighted decision to give that research away to our rivals — harming Pennsylvania innovators and workers in the process.
The upcoming decision concerns a petition before the World Trade Organization. Last year, President Biden supported a WTO proposal to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. Now, his administration is considering whether the WTO should extend that waiver to treatments and tests for COVID-19. Advocates say these waivers are necessary to expand access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics in low- and middle-income countries. But there is simply no evidence that intellectual property protections were hindering access in the first place.
Vaccination rates remain tragically low in parts of the developing world. However, these low rates are due largely to logistical problems, like lack of refrigerated transport and storage, as well as vaccine hesitancy. Canceling patents cannot do anything to fix these problems.
Indeed, before the first waiver was adopted, the Serum Institute of India — the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer — had halted production of COVID-19 vaccines because stockpiles had grown so large. Countries around the world were destroying unused vaccines and turning away donations. Doubling down on failed policy prescriptions that could negatively impact the development of new medicines here in Pennsylvania and around the nation would be tragic.
Instead, policy makers should carefully consider the joint communication to the WTO from the governments of Mexico and Switzerland which concluded that we do not face “an IP-induced lack of access to or a lack of manufacturing capacity of COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics.” Inventing a new treatment or vaccine is immensely time-consuming and risky.
Among drugs that enter Phase I clinical trials, only about 10% ultimately win approval from the Food and Drug Administration. This high failure rate is one reason that bringing a successful new medicine to market is so expensive — costing upwards of $2 billion. By granting creators an exclusive period of time during which to sell their inventions, patents give the companies and investors who take these outsized risks a chance to earn back their costs, fund new research lines, and earn a return. Indeed, without the promise of strong IP protection, companies like Moderna and BioNTech may have never worked to commercialize the Nobel-prize-winning-discoveries made at the University of Pennsylvania.
Expanding the waiver would signal to the world that governments can choose to ignore patents, even on once-in-a-lifetime discoveries and even without a good reason. Once that happens, investment in the next generation of high-tech medicines — and the economic success and jobs that usually accompany them — would quickly shrink. That will uniquely impact Pennsylvania, where the life science industry is responsible for more than $105 billion in economic output. And the Philadelphia area, which is home to roughly 1,200 life science companies and considered one of the biggest biotech hubs in the nation, would take a particularly hard hit. There, more than 60,000 residents are currently employed by the life science industry.
What’s more, a waiver extension would effectively give valuable American IP away to our rivals. President Biden has already authorized a transfer of the seminal Covid-19 vaccine research conducted here in Pennsylvania to those nations. But countries like South Africa, India, and China are eager to gain more of a competitive advantage over our life-science firms.
The Biden administration can’t let that happen — for the sake of future Pennsylvania scientists researching vaccines and treatments for pandemics yet to come.
Former Democratic Congressman Ron Klink served four consecutive terms representing Pennsylvania’s 4th Congressional District.
This article originally appeared on pennlive.com:
https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2023/12/waiving-intellectual-property-rights-for-covid-research-would-hurt-pennsylvania-opinion.html
December 5, 2023
Penn Live