The German government issued a statement Thursday (May 6) opposing a U.S. proposal to drop intellectual property protection for the Chinese Communist virus (COVID-19) vaccine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin on March 3, 2021.
According to Bloomberg, a German government spokesman said in an email on March 6 that the U.S. “abandonment” plan would create “serious problems” for vaccine production, noting that the industry believes that pharmaceutical companies may not actively manufacture vaccines in the future if there is no profit incentive after spending on research and development. The statement stressed that “restricting vaccine production is not an option.
The statement emphasized that “it is manufacturing capacity and high quality standards, not patents, that limit vaccine production. The protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and this must continue in the future.”
Vaccine stocks, which had been sinking, rebounded in response to the announcement of Germany’s position. U.S. Moderna (Moderna Inc.) narrowed to 2.1 percent from 12 percent; German drugmaker CureVac, to 5.4 percent from 13 percent; and Germany’s BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer (Pfizer), narrowed to 3.5 percent after a disastrous 15 percent drop.
The United States, Germany and other countries will debate the issue of “patent abandonment” at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the next few weeks.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Wednesday (May 5) that the U.S. government supports waiving intellectual property protection for vaccines in light of the worsening epidemic and the urgent need for vaccines to save lives. In a statement, she said, “This is a global health crisis, and the unique nature of the COVID-19 epidemic requires that we take extraordinary measures, and the U.S. government believes strongly in intellectual property protection, but in order to end the epidemic, (we) support waiving those (patent) protections for the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Shares of the major companies that produce the vaccine: Modena, Pfizer, BioNTech and others, plummeted after news first became public that the vaccine’s patent rights might be waived.
EU officials expect that the debate will take several months and is likely to reach only partial patent exemptions because it is almost impossible for the EU and the U.S. to agree to cede the intellectual property rights of “mRNA technology” to China (the Chinese Communist Party) and because most of the world’s poorer countries do not have the capacity and expertise to produce vaccines.
A more immediate solution to the problem, officials say, would be for the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries to follow the EU’s lead and export more vaccines to those in need.
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