Covid-19 vaccine makers complain in a letter to Joe Biden
Some of the top Covid-19 vaccine makers sent a letter to US president Joe Biden, warning him against efforts to ‘undermine American intellectual property’ and manufacturing jobs that rely on innovation.
Covid-19 vaccine makers complain about South Africa in a letter to Joe Biden photo credit: The New York Times
Some of the top Covid-19 vaccine makers sent a letter to US president Joe Biden, warning him against efforts to ‘undermine American intellectual property’ and manufacturing jobs that rely on innovation.
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The letter
The letter, which can be found on Business Tech, specifically talks about South Africa and India’s efforts to suspend Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights at the World Trade Organization. The letter was signed by senior executives from Covid-19 vaccine makers: Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca and was sent by the pharmaceutical lobbying group PhRMA.
Direct extracts from the letter include: ‘Intellectual property protections have been essential not only to speed the research and development of new treatments and vaccines, but also to facilitate sharing of technology and information to scale up vaccine manufacturing to meet global needs.’
“Eliminating those protections would undermine the global response to the pandemic, including ongoing effort to tackle new variants, create confusion that could potentially undermine public confidence in vaccine safety, and create a barrier to information sharing.”
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