Support for waiver not universal

BRUSSELS/NEW YORK: The European Union yesterday backed a US proposal to discuss waiving patent protections for Covid19 vaccines, but drugmakers and some other governments opposed the idea, saying it would not solve global inoculation shortages.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen expressed willingness to explore a waiver after President Joe Biden on Thursday promoted the plan, reversing the US position.

‘‘The main thing is, we have to speed this up,’’ US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said yesterday as India battled a devastating Covid19 outbreak.

‘‘None of us are going to be fully safe until . . . we get as many people vaccinated as possible.’’

A patent waiver was ‘‘one possible means of increasing manufacture, and access to vaccines’’, he said, as the White House denied a split among officials over the waiver idea.

Biden’s Administration endorsed negotiations at the World Trade Organisation to gain global agreement.

WTO directorgeneral Ngozi OkonjoIweala told member states she ‘‘warmly welcomed’’ the US move.

‘‘We need to respond urgently to Covid19 because the world is watching and people are dying,’’ she said.

In a tweet, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called Biden’s move a ‘‘Monumental moment in the fight against #Covid19’’.

Despite that enthusiasm, drugmakers, who stand to lose revenue if they are stripped of patent rights to Covid19 vaccines, and other critics found flaws in the proposal.

The complexities of manufacturing meant free access to the intellectual property was not enough to immediately increase vaccine production, they said.

Moderna waived its patent rights in October, and yesterday noted the lack of companies able to rapidly manufacture a similar vaccine and secure approval for it.

Combined, Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc have forecast more than $US45 billion ($NZ62.2 billion) in sales this year for their Covid19 vaccines.

In the long term, a waiver would discourage pharmaceutical companies from rapidly responding to global health threats with large research investments, some said.

Germany rejected the idea, saying vaccine shortages were due to limited production capacity and quality standards rather than patent protection issues.

Health Minister Jens Spahn said he shared Biden’s goal of providing the whole world with vaccines, but a government spokeswoman said ‘‘the protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and must remain so in the future’’.

Moreover, a waiver would take months to negotiate and would require unanimous agreement among the 164 countries in the WTO. Drug companies instead urged rich countries to share vaccines more generously with the developing world. — Reuters