Only covers vaccines, not lifesaving treatments or the diagnostics for testing COVID-19 which are a crucial part of an arsenal to prevent, treat and contain COVID-19.
Largely restates the existing limited flexibilities to overcome only patent barriers that already exists in Article 31 of the TRIPS text. This has proved unfit for boosting production of COVID-19 vaccines. And this text adds new burdensome conditions not now required by WTO rules that would impose additional limits on countries using non-voluntary licensing.
It also continues to require product-by-product authorization, meaning no simplified pathway for follow-on manufacturers to produce and enter the market.
The leaked text also does not waive other forms of IP barriers that thwart COVID vaccine production, including protection of undisclosed information (Article 39). This is essential for the production of COVID-19 vaccines.
Nobel Prize-winning economists Jayati Ghosh and Joseph Stiglitz and the pan-Africa director of Oxfam have praised South Africa’s President Ramaphosa for rejecting a bogus proposal to waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 medical products. This was contained in document that emerged from World Trade Organisation negotiations for a COVID-19 intellectual property waiver but was leaked.
The leading economists praise the President’s leadership on the waiver, but warn that the compromise proposal reflects the EU’s “belligerent blockade of any actual waiver of IP barriers” and would add even greater restrictions to vaccine and treatment manufacturing.
They have commended Ramaphosa’s leadership on access to the COVID-19 tools “that can facilitate and sustain socio-economic recovery and protect lives and livelihoods in South Africa, India and many other developing countries”, but warn the proposed compromise would fail to make a difference in battling COVID-19.
Ghosh, Stiglitz and Kamalingin warn that the proposal “does not waive the intellectual property barriers necessary to deliver any meaningful access” to vaccines, treatments, or tests and actively “adds new “burdensome conditions” on countries using non-voluntary licensing that are worse than the status quo.
This comes after a compromise proposal was leaked from the European Union and the United States negotiations with South Africa and India over a temporary waiver of the trade-related aspects of intellectual property (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 technologies, aimed at allowing low and middle-income countries to manufacture vaccines, tests and treatments. The leaked proposal
They criticize the leaked text for failing to remove other IP barriers beyond patents that “thwart COVID vaccine production, including protection of undisclosed information” and say that this does not meet the leaders’ stated demands for “a comprehensive waiver of all blocking intellectual property barriers”.
The proposal also covers only COVID-19 vaccines, excluding treatments and diagnostics that could be saving lives now, especially where vaccines are in short supply. These tools are a “crucial part of an arsenal to prevent, treat and contain COVID-19”, the letter says.
“A bad deal is worse than no deal”, they say, offering to “strongly support” Ramaphosa should he reject the proposal. The proposed text “reflects the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies in preserving the deadly status quo”, they say, “In contrast to your leadership for a meaningful waiver of IP barriers.”
The letter accuses the European Union of upholding a “belligerent blockade of any actual waiver of IP barriers“ and the United States of insisting “that the IP waiver it supports be limited to vaccines.”
It comes after the People’s Vaccine Alliance, the global civil society campaign supporting the waiver, highlighted that the EU had “climbed down and finally admitted that intellectual property rules and pharmaceutical monopolies are a barrier to vaccinating the world”, but that the proposal “is not the comprehensive TRIPS waiver demanded by over 100 governments” and would not bring an end to vaccine apartheid.
More than 130 former world leaders, Nobel laureates, leading scientists, economists, humanitarians, faith leaders, business leaders, trade unionists, and celebrities marked the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a pandemic last week by calling on world leaders to support a comprehensive TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO).