India and South Africa have submitted a new proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) that limits to three years the suspension of patents for vaccines, medicines and medical supplies necessary to face the coronavirus pandemic.
The document has already been delivered to the member countries, which will discuss it in a first meeting on May 31, before the General Council of the organization, scheduled for June 8 and 9.
The text is a new version of the initial proposal, presented last October, which specifies points that had been left open then.
If then it was said that the patent exemption should be extended until the almost 8,000 million inhabitants of the Earth reached group immunity, now three years are set with annual meetings to evaluate the measure and a final one to analyze if a hypothetical was necessary. extension.
The new proposal is not only more precise, but it has much more support and goes into detail in the search for more allies.
That of October was only from India and South Africa and, although it then received the favorable vote of a hundred countries (the poorest), it met with the frontal rejection of all the rich - the United States, the European Union, Japan, Switzerland. ..—.
Now there are already 60 countries that also sponsor the initiative -among them other regional powers such as Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia ...-, which also received its greatest support on the 5th when the Administration of US President Joe Biden announced its intention to support it in the WTO.
Also large organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) —which opened its annual assembly this Monday— and organizations such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, as well as dozens of entities of the so-called civil society, are working so that the patent release is a real possibility.
"The proposal seems like a smart move to me," says Guillem López-Casasnovas, director of the Center for Research in Economics and Health at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). “The promoters speak of a period of three years and include vaccines, but also all the processes and technologies necessary for their development. This shows that they are not thinking in the short term, but in a scenario in which new variants make it necessary to adapt existing vaccines and the entire production chain requires greater flexibility. It is a proposal of depth ”, he adds.
Analysts agree that the patent game is played in the medium term and that it makes no sense to suggest that its possible suspension could end this year with the lack of vaccines. Only negotiations within the WTO can last for months, after which countries should make their decisions internally. Subsequently, the knowledge transfer process to the new producers should take place, a step that experience shows can take about another half a year, according to the agreements signed voluntarily to date by the pharmaceutical companies.
Time limits that make it impossible for the world this year to have the between 12,000 and 15,000 million doses necessary to immunize its entire population.
"The problem is of such magnitude that it will not be solved in a few months," admits Vanessa López, director of Salud por Derecho, an entity that works for universal access to medicines.
“Patents are still a barrier and the first step towards the solution is to remove it.
In the short term, world production will be able to increase somewhat, because there is unused capacity.
But what would really change the scene would be sharing knowledge without limits.
This would lay a solid foundation to increase production and better distribute it around the world for the remainder of this pandemic and the following ones, ”adds López.
On the first point, the most cited examples are those of the Canadian Biolyse;
Incepta, from Bangladesh;
Israel's Teva (the world's largest generic manufacturer), and Danish biotech Bavarian Nordic, specializing in the development and manufacture of vaccines.
All four, as revealed by the digital media 'Politico', have been offered to large pharmaceutical companies to help increase world production.
All have received silence for an answer.
There are many, and very authoritative, voices that nevertheless advocate continuing to develop the current voluntary licensing system - agreements between companies, of which almost 300 have already been signed in the world, according to Duke University - as a faster way. to achieve the production that the world needs.
It is the bet of the European Union and the one that was imposed at the G-20 meeting held last Friday, which in the so-called Declaration of Rome anchored the solution to the crisis around “voluntary license agreements, voluntary transfer of technology and knowledge ”and the creation of a“
pooling
of patents ”, the latter proposal about which not much more was specified.
For Vicente Ortún, professor of Economics at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), this is the "most promising solution for what is actually a problem of production and not of patents." “Patents have many things to improve, but right now they are not the problem. If you insist on going this way, between negotiations in the WTO, national decisions, disputes with companies, the emergence of large intellectual property law firms ... we are planted in 2025 without a solution that for another part of the sector itself can reach it in a year ”, he assures.
Raquel González, head of Institutional Relations at Doctors Without Borders (MSF), instead describes the results of the G-20 meeting as "disappointing". “You have to see the practical result of what emerged from the meeting. There are developments that may be interesting, such as the proposal to add new agents to production. But as long as the system is based on voluntary licenses, nothing will be universal. Everything will remain in the hands of the companies, there will be conditions and limits ... ”, he explains.
For the supporters of the suspension of patents, it is somewhat cynical to claim that it would not solve the lack of vaccines in a few months when seven months ago this option was not allowed to work.
“What we have seen is that the current system has failed.
And we cannot allow ourselves to do it again in 2022 or 2023. The way to do it is to start working now, ”says Vanessa López.
For those who consider that this is not the solution, the path goes through more concrete and efficient measures.
They criticize, for example, that the United States now supports the patent exemption or commits to donate 100 million doses to Covax - gestures that they consider more image than practical - while maintaining obstacles to the export of vaccines from their territory.