Where Covid, Cancer, and Intellectual Property Rights Converge

Top officials from around the world are convened in Switzerland for a major World Trade Organization meeting. There, they'll decide whether to invalidate intellectual property (IP) protections for Covid vaccines. Some say that's necessary to ensure equal access for people everywhere, in nations rich and poor. 

Vaccine equity is a laudable goal. But ironically, this proposal would strip away the very IP protections that allowed scientists to develop Covid vaccines in the first place. That's a terrible idea — a dire threat to biomedical innovation as we know it.

From the moment scientists began work on Covid vaccines, officials worried that there would be too few doses to fully vaccinate the world. They also worried that wealthier nations would hoard available supplies for their own populations, keeping the lifesaving shots away from people living in poorer countries. 

These fears led India and South Africa two years ago to introduce a proposal at the World Trade Organization to waive the IP protections guaranteed under the 1995 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement — TRIPS for short. If anyone had the freedom to manufacture Covid vaccines, they argued, presumably there would be no need to worry about vaccine inequity. 

This logic was faulty from the start. To begin with, making the technology behind Covid vaccines free for the taking doesn't mean just anyone can start producing the vaccines at once. Doing so requires massive investments in manufacturing facilities and expertise in the complex production processes — an undertaking whose cost can range into the hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to get right. In fact, that process moves faster with the aid and expertise of patent-holders making their products available to manufacturers abroad under license, as in the case of the Covid vaccines. 

Indeed, under the governing rules of the TRIPS agreement, the process worked like a charm. Today, the world faces a surplus — not a shortage — of vaccine doses. 

Nigeria, for example, has 30 million shots stockpiled. The world's largest vaccine manufacturer, India's Serum Institute, halted production in May after their reserves reached 200 million doses. At the same time, COVAX, the international vaccine initiative, announced they have enough vaccines to meet its goal of immunizing 70% of the population in over 90 lower-income countries. 

Clearly, IP protections have not hampered vaccine access across the world. So waiving them would do nothing to speed up deliveries.

If the WTO fails to consider these facts, the organization risks throwing cold water on decades of medical progress made thanks to the strong global IP protection codified in the TRIPS agreement.

Drug research is risky business. Taking the inevitable failures into account, it takes on average more than $2 billion and 10 years of investment for researchers to bring one new medicine to patients. It was strong IP protections that incentivized past R&D projects, which laid the foundation for scientists to bring Covid vaccines to the world in record time. 

If the WTO decides to erode those protections, the organization will in effect be removing the cornerstone of biopharmaceutical discovery. That doesn't bode well for today's patients living with serious health conditions — or those who will develop health problems tomorrow.

 

Consider the promise the mRNA technology behind some of the Covid vaccines holds for cancer patients. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have been exploring how their mRNA processes could help colon cancer patients, who are in desperate need of new treatments. In the United States this year alone, colon cancer will claim over 50,000 lives.

Other research shows promise in using mRNA technology to fight a whole slate of viruses that are causing public health crises in their own right. The technology could help scientists uncover the secret to beating HIV, the flu, rabies, and Zika, among others.

All this potential would evaporate in a flash without intellectual property protections. Moderna and Pfizer are counting on a strong IP regime to make sure the additional billions of investment dollars they're pouring into mRNA research will eventually pay off.

The waiver before the WTO isn't just unnecessary. It's dangerous. For the sake of current and future patients in need of a medical breakthrough, let's hope trade officials reject this misguided proposal.

Andrew Spiegel, Esq. is the Executive Director of the Global Colon Cancer Association.