IP waiver for COVID-19 vaccines

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In news: The United States announced support for waiving intellectual property protection for Covid-19 vaccines.

More information-

• The US is in the process of pursuing “text-based negotiations” on the waiver at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
• Text-based negotiations involve negotiators exchanging texts with their preferred wording and then thrashing out a consensus on the working. 
• All 164 WTO members must agree on the draft, and any one member can veto it. 
• The IP waiver might open up space for production of Covid vaccines with emergency use authorisations (EUA) on a larger scale in middle-income countries. 
• Countries including Canada, South Korea, and Bangladesh have shown interest in making Covid vaccines if they can get a patent waiver.
• The US support for an IP waiver stems from a proposal by India and South Africa in the WTO in 2020 to waive certain conditions of the TRIPS agreement.
• The proposal had called for a waiver on all Covid interventions, including testing diagnostics and novel therapeutics.

Deterrents for the waiver-

• Pharma companies had opposed the proposed waiver as eliminating IP protections would “undermine the global response to the pandemic”, including the ongoing efforts to tackle new variants. 
• Eliminating protections would not speed up production.
• It would not be feasible for a company to move vaccines to a developing nation.

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