Biden Supports WTO Proposal to Waive COVID-19 Vaccine Patents

President Biden will support a World Trade Organization (WTO) proposal to waive patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic, marking a seismic shift in U.S. policy on intellectual property protections.

“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said yesterday, noting that “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.”

Tai said the U.S. “will actively participate in text-based negotiations” needed to make adoption of the proposal a reality, but she warned that the negotiations could be drawn out “given the consensus-based nature of the [WTO] and the complexity of the issues involved.”

An administration official told FDAnews that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative consulted with dozens of stakeholders, including trade partners, health experts, advocates, labor unions and vaccine makers, before presenting options to President Biden, who ultimately agreed to support the WTO waiver.

Biden has previously said that patents shouldn’t get in the way of vaccination programs, but he has not formally supported the WTO proposal until now.

Adoption of the proposal is likely to still be an uphill battle as a decision on the waiver requires unanimous support from WTO members, and other wealthy nations and territories, including the UK and the EU, have balked at the proposal.

The WTO proposal was first presented by India and South Africa during fall meetings of the organization’s Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). However, the plan ran into major resistance from both the pharmaceutical industry and wealthy nations, including the U.S. (DID, March 15).

The next TRIPS meeting is scheduled for June 8-9, where the South Africa-India proposal is expected to feature prominently given the new U.S. backing. ― Jason Scott