PhRMA Blasts WHO Efforts to Pause Patent Rights for COVID-19 Medicines

In a 269-page submission to U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) spelled out the group’s objections to efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other organizations to expand COVID-19 vaccines and treatments at the expense of intellectual property rights.

PhRMA charged that some countries are using the COVID-19 pandemic opportunistically to advance longstanding industrial policies to erode intellectual property protections.

The group urged Tai to target compulsory licensing policies in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Russia, and to “end egregious and discriminatory pricing policies” in Canada, Japan and South Korea, and elsewhere. PhRMA among others. The policies put at risk  almost $60 billion in American biopharmaceutical exports and over four million U.S. jobs, PhRMA said.

PhRMA also cited the 2020 proposal by India and South Africa submitted to the World trade Organization, which would temporarily waive patent protections for COVID-19 products.

“The proposal will do nothing to address the production and distribution challenges for making COVID-19 vaccines globally available,” said PhRMA, adding that it “threatens to undermine the ability to respond to both the current pandemic and future health crises.”

PhRMA also hit out at the Biden administration’s support for the proposal, calling it “a reversal of longstanding U.S. policy under both Democratic and Republican Administrations concerning the protection of American intellectual property rights.”

Read PhRMA’s comments here: www.fdanews.com/02-04-22-PhRMAscomments.pdf. — Jason Scott