The pharmaceutical industry fears that the Biden patent movement will set a dangerous precedent

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Profits in the pharmaceutical industry are backed by a patented fortress, which guarantees doctors an income until it expires. On Wednesday, Joe Biden broke with decades of U.S. orthodoxy and cracked a wall.
Of his administration decision The temporary waiver of the Covid-19 vaccine patent has sparked immediate outrage in the pharmaceutical sector, saying the move goes beyond intellectual property rights and will prevent U.S. innovation when jobs are sent abroad.
“Intellectual property is the lifeblood of biotechnology, it’s like oxygen to our industry,” said Brad Loncar, a biotechnology investor. “If you remove it, you don’t have a biotech sector.”
Kiden Tai Biden’s chief trade adviser said the US government still has a “strong belief” in the protection of intellectual property that it supports the waiver of patents Covid-19 vaccines to help boost owners ’global production.
The move is happening with some countries, among others India, efforts are being made to combat more waves of the virus, even though others have carried out successful vaccination campaigns that cause infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
The waiver proposal was submitted to the World Trade Organization in October and since then more than 60 countries have helped increase the production of vaccines around the world in order to contain the virus. Washington’s support is a key step in making the proposal a reality, and Tai said the U.S. will participate in negotiations to find out details about the waiver in the WTO.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, told the Financial Times that the decision was a “monumental moment” in the fight against it. Covid-19. “I am not surprised by this announcement. That’s what I expected from President Biden’s administration. “
However, the pharmaceutical industry did not expect it; The U.S. has tended to strongly protect the intellectual property rights of domestic companies in trade disputes. Industry leaders say the decision is a severe blow as innovation would do little to boost global production due to a lack of manufacturing facilities and skilled workers.
“Here the steps of the administration are very necessary and harmful,” said Jeremy Levin, president of the Bio-Commerce Association. “Securing vaccines quickly will not be the result, and worse, it indicates that companies that have invested in new technologies will be at risk of getting rid of it.”
The announcement was a success with the participation of major Covid-19 vaccine authors. Shares of BioNTech in Frankfurt lost 14 percent on Thursday. Moderna and Novavax closed between 3 and 6 percent in New York the day before.
Sven Borho, managing partner of OrbiMed Advisors, a health investment company, said pharmaceutical executives fear the administration will create a precedent that will facilitate the suspension of patents in the future.
“They’re worried in the long run that it’s going to get in the way of the door -‘ Okay, we’re done with Covid-19, let’s do it with the next crisis and the next one, ’” he said. “And all of a sudden, a cancer cure patent is to be revoked. They fear that it will be a mechanism that sets the stage for future action. “
Peter Bach, director of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Health Policy and Results Center, said there is a potential exchange, an immediate need to have a pandemic, against the risk of being more cautious about drug dealers when investing in pioneering therapies in the future.
“This action will allow more access and more people to save their lives today in 2021 and if the conclusion is on the way, maybe there will be no gene therapy for 100 genes, then that’s an exchange worth discussing,” Bach said.
The fight against intellectual property rights is the first major international patent dispute since a clash between drug manufacturers and expensive HIV treatments by several countries in Brazil and South Africa in the late 1990s.
Countries that tried to contain the epidemic wanted to make generic versions of HIV drugs, but the companies that developed them interpreted the moves as a breach of patent agreements, creating numerous lawsuits that thwarted efforts to supply cheap pills.
Members of the pharmaceutical industry say the suspension of the Covid-19 vaccine patents will hurt jobs in the U.S. biotechnology sector in an effort to boost production abroad. The Donald Trump administration firmly refused to resign last year.
Levin said U.S. technology can “create jobs in America, but if they transfer abroad, they will have high quality job creation. [here]”.
The mRNA technology used in BioNTech / Pfizer and Modern vaccines is being tested to treat other diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
The long-term effects are unclear. Umer Raffat, an analyst at Evercore ISI, noted that the resignation has not been permanent, and that other influential actors, including the EU and the UK, have yet to support the Biden administration’s move.
Borho of OrbiMed said: “It’s a unique circumstance. I think this will eventually be narrow and fair in Covid-19 vaccines. I don’t think the Biden administration wants to weaken broad patents for biotechnology or the pharmaceutical industry.”
Proponents of the rejection applauded the U.S. government’s decision as an important step in boosting the global supply of Covid-19 vaccines.
“The pharmaceutical industry has said the pandemic is not the time for regular business,” said Zain Rizvi, Access to Public Citizen Medicines Specialization. “Funded by billions of dollars in taxpayers, [vaccine makers] they have a moral imperative to stop opposing efforts toward expansion. . . production “.
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