BIO Declaration on Global Access to COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatments and Role of IP

By Donald Zuhn --

In a message distributed to Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) members, Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, BIO President and CEO, released a declaration signed by the corporate and organizational leaders of 209 global biotechnology companies and 41 biotech associations, in which the signatories acknowledged their "social responsibility to work with other stakeholders -- healthcare providers, governments, multilateral organizations, and non-governmental donor organizations -- to ensure that COVID vaccines and treatments get to the patients in the world who most need them."

Dr. McMurry-Heath began her message to BIO members by recognizing "the ongoing effort by some political leaders to strip our scientific intellectual property rights pertaining to vaccines and treatments for COVID-19," and noting that "[t]his proprietary science and technology was developed by our scientists working day and night at great financial risk to our companies."  The BIO CEO also highlighted BIO's efforts to establish a COVID-19 global Strategy for Harnessing Access Reaching Everyone (SHARE) program, which seeks to ensure a sufficient global supply of COVID-19 vaccines, to ensure safe and expeditious global access to COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, and to strengthen and support healthcare systems in low-and middle-income countries in addressing COVID-19.  Dr. McMurry-Heath also pointed out that biotech companies "ARE sharing our IP and know-how through almost 300 voluntary global agreements to increase vaccine manufacturing and distribution capacity."  Yet, the BIO CEO notes that these efforts have "not changed the minds of those who believe we should simply turn over all of our science to countries around the world," an idea Dr. McMurry-Heath asserts "is misguided, and most importantly, won't solve the problem."

The declaration sets forth five statements or goals.  First, the signatories state that the biotech sector "must continue to play a constructive, proactive part in developing COVID solutions and the global manufacturing capacity to produce them."  The declaration notes that in the past year, more than 950 global R&D projects have been launched on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and biologics, and more than 250 global partnerships have been formed to build manufacturing capacity.

The declaration next states that intellectual property is the foundation of the biotech sector, explaining that:

[Intellectual property] is responsible for creating the global biotech network that responded so quickly to the COVID crisis in the first place.  It is what gives investors the confidence to fund companies with long time horizons and high risks.  It gave companies the assurance that they could quickly pivot during the early days of the pandemic into COVID projects.  And it helped ensure the type of global cooperation and partnerships that are driving companies, countries, and manufacturers to quickly scale up the production.

The signatories also express their support for strong, collaborative efforts like those endorsed by the G-20 to address the global imbalances in access to COVID vaccines and treatments.

Turning to the proposed World Trade Organization (WTO) waiver of intellectual property rights, the signatories declare that the proposed waiver "will be ineffective and counterproductive in addressing this crisis," arguing that:

Intellectual property rights are not responsible for the imbalance in COVID vaccine supplies between higher and lower income countries.  It will create a long contentious global negotiation that will not urgently address the crisis, and foster more "vaccine nationalism," exacerbating shortages in an already strained global supply chain.  It would divert limited resources from companies that are focused on maximizing current global partnerships while maintaining quality and patient safety.  Lastly, it would send a powerful signal to the biotech sector and investors to avoid taking the risks to develop solutions in future public health emergencies.

The declaration concludes with the goal of producing more than 11 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, and significantly more in the first part of 2022, and a commitment by the signatories to work with other global stakeholders "to see that these doses get to those that most need them, wherever they may be."

A list of the corporate and organizational signatories to the declaration can be found here.

Comments

[Profesor Joshua Sarnoff]

I would feel better about the declaration if they had agreed that all supplies would be given to COVAX and thus would distribute vaccines according to worldwide priorities, rather than collaborating in nationalist efforts to clear the shelves and vaccinate "me first." Similarly, in regard to their IP rights, I would feel better if the BIO industry had agreed to license all rights through the ACT Accelerator, so as to increase worldwide production. Instead, this appears to be lipstick on a pig, when the world urgently needs better value choices by industry to prevent death and disease, which also will come back to bite us in variants and other ways notwithstanding the short-term nationalism. Like it or not, we are now one integrated world - just look at the world economic losses and the >$7 trillion we just spent in a year domestically to address them. We will pay dearly in the long term for our nationalist approaches.

[skeptical]

Professor Sarnoff,

Putting aside for the moment the HUGE emotional triggers that you apparently are suffering from, what exactly is the legal structure of this "Like it or not, we are now one integrated world"...?

Do I still enjoy all of the legal rights of being a US citizen?

Is democracy (or any form of democratic republic) inherently DEAD based on your emotionalism?

Don't get me wrong - I have been, well, skeptical of the Big Pharma actions all along (and I would dare say even more vocal about it than you), but your basis for authority is beyond troubling.