Covid-19 and the Role of Intellectual Property: Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 7 May 2021

Patents and Sustainable Medical Treatment in Developing Countries: Lessons from COVID-19 Vaccines

“…However, even when pharmaceutical companies transfer the know-how and technologies used to produce the vaccines, developing countries still face a lack of production facilities and limited capacity, due to fewer available pharmaceutical companies. Thus, a patent waiver alone cannot solve the accessibility problem [52]. To illustrate the point that this is an issue for the developing world, it is important to mention the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, which has been providing assistance for developing countries to increase local pharmaceutical production capacity [53].…”

“…Returning to the topic of COVID-19 vaccines, transparency is another problem, especially when it comes to pricing. The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition indicates that concerns around the extreme prices of COVID-19 vaccines are due to the lack of transparency [52]. The WHO also states that there is a lack of vaccine transparency and that greater transparency could aid in decision-making and the introduction of new vaccines [73].…”

“…Compulsory licensing could be a potential solution for governments to access COVID-19 vaccines at a more affordable price, although compulsory licensing requires adequate production capacity, a procedure for receiving a compulsory license, adequate payment for a compulsory license, and know-how and technology transfer [52]. There are also local regulatory issues in developing countries, such as requirements around the number of years the patent must have been in place before compulsory licensing is allowed [52]. Therefore, the optimal solution for developing countries to have more accessible and affordable products could be to use compulsory licensing as a negotiation tool, as E7 proposed during the interviews.…”

What the COVID-19 pandemic revealed about intellectual property

“…The first myth is common: "If patent protection had not been available, [basic molecular] technologies, without which the vaccines could not have been made available in such a short time, might not have been developed in the first place" 6 .…”

Waiving intellectual property rights: Boom or bust for medical innovation?

“…As such, the proposed IPR waiver would be extremely broad and could also apply to technologies that are only peripherally related to COVID-19 vaccines or treatments. 2 The proposed IPR waiver would allow all WTO members to not make patents available for product and process inventions and would exempt WTO member countries from granting exclusive rights to patent holders. 3 Implementation of the proposal would allow WTO member countries to break existing patent rights, to not grant new patent rights, and to not pay adequate renumerations for using intellectual property (IP) broadly related to COVID-19.…”