The first World Trade Organization meeting to discuss a draft agreement to temporarily waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines went “very well”, its chair said on May 6.
BioNTech’s co-founder and top executive said the vaccine maker has no plans to enforce its intellectual property rights should organizations in Africa strike out on their own to produce unauthorized versions of the company’s shot.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on November 30 the Biden administration is continuing to work on building a consensus toward waving intellectual property rights tied to Covid-19 vaccines.
A World Health Organization (WHO) committee said on July 12 that human genome editing technologies to treat serious disease should be shared more generously, to allow poorer nations to benefit from the highly dynamic scientific field.
The head of the World Trade Organization said there was a pathway for a global deal to get more Covid-19 vaccines to developing countries, despite a split over whether drugs firms should be stripped of their intellectual property rights.
One of the more cynical attacks on our industry goes something like this: “Taxpayers fund medical research through research grants, so they should get the benefits of any discoveries, not the greedy pharma companies.” I’m sure you’ve heard it. Politicians and pundits of all stripes love to reinforce the idea that pharma is gorging at the public trough – that all we do is gobble up federal grants as seed money for our outrageously priced nostrums.
United Therapeutics Corporation announced that the company is pursuing additional claims for trade secret misappropriation against Liquidia Technologies Inc. and a former United Therapeutics employee who later joined Liquidia as an executive.
A deal on an intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization (WTO) was no closer to acceptance on May 31 despite Washington’s backing, due to expected scepticism about a new draft, sources close to the talks told Reuters.
The European Commission called on May 7 on the United States and other major Covid-19 vaccine producers to export what they make as the European Union does, rather than talk about waiving intellectual property rights to the shots.
President Joe Biden on May 5 threw his support behind waiving intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, bowing to mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers and more than 100 other countries, but angering pharmaceutical companies. Biden voiced his support for a waiver – a sharp reversal of the previous U.S. position – in remarks to reporters, followed swiftly by a statement from his top trade negotiator, Katherine Tai, who backed negotiations at the World Trade Organization.
