Showing posts with label IP waivers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IP waivers. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

The Biden administration is endangering intellectual property rights; The Dallas Morning News, June 20, 2023

Frank Cullen, The Dallas Morning News; The Biden administration is endangering intellectual property rights

"Simply put, the waiver seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

What the waiver would do is quash the development of additional COVID-19 countermeasures, from lifesaving antiviral pills to rapid tests even more accurate than the ones we have. Firms currently investing in new COVID-19 tests and treatments will have no reason to continue their work if the IP rights for those products are preemptively nullified.

In the long term, an IP waiver would set a devastating precedent for U.S. innovators working to address crises far beyond COVID-19. Startups and inventors need secure intellectual property rights to raise funding and recoup their steep research and development costs, especially in America’s life sciences industry. New drugs often cost more than $2 billion and can take more than a decade to make it to market."

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests; The Conversation, November 21, 2022

Associate Professor in Public Health, La Trobe University, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Tasmania, Lecturer in Law, Flinders University, The Conversation;
 Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests

"Low and middle-income countries have been impacted disproportionately by the pandemic so far, suffering 85% of the estimated 14.9 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021. 

Globally, progress in reducing extreme poverty was set back three to four years during 2020–21. But low-income countries lost eight to nine years of progress.

Expanding the WTO decision on COVID vaccines to include treatments and tests could be vital to reduce the health burden on poorer countries from COVID and enable them to recover from the pandemic. The Australian government should get behind this initiative and encourage other countries to do the same."