After shift on vaccine patents, US backs freer flow of components
The new US position in support of lifting patents on Covid-19 vaccines has taken attention away from an equally significant change by Washington, which plans to open up trade in the raw materials used to make them.
After having recently taken heat for blocking such exports, Commerce Secretary Katherine Tai said Wednesday that the US government would "work to increase the raw materials needed to produce those vaccines".
The assertion was hidden at the bottom of the statement unveiling Washington's remarkable reversal of its position on Covid19 vaccine patents, which coincides with a shortage of doses in emerging and developing nations as cases surge in some countries.
Long legal and economic policy debates likely lie ahead about waiving vaccine patents, particularly at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Meanwhile, the
difficulties faced by some laboratories in obtaining components to manufacture vaccines look set to stymie the drive to ramp up production.
Two labs have recently spoken out about their difficulties, laying the blame at Washington's door.
Germany's Curevac said it could not secure supplies of certain materials from the United States.
Several days earlier, India's Serum Institute, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, called on US President Joe Biden to step in.
"Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the US, I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the US so that vaccine production can ramp up," the company's president Adar Poonawalla wrote on Twitter.
There is no actual embargo on exporting vaccine components. Instead, Biden, like his predecessor Donald Trump, invoked the Defense Production Act-which normally concerns wartime-to confront the pandemic.
While it does not explicitly ban exports, it puts the US government first in line to buy certain products made in the country.
US officials have previously played down the possible effect of the law on global vaccine production. "There's just more global manufacturing happening everywhere in the world than suppliers can currently support," a US official told a White House briefing late last month on condition of anonymity.
Frankfurt, May 6 (AFP/APP):German reinsurance giant Munich Re posted higher first-quarter profits Thursday and said it was on course to meet its 2021 targets despite payouts linked to Covid-19 and a US cold snap.
The Munich-based group, whose main business is cushioning other insurers against risk, booked a net profit of 589 million euros ($708 million) over the JanuaryMarch period, up from 221 million a year earlier.
Premium takings, which are equivalent to revenues in the insurance sector, climbed 1.9 percent to reach 14.5 billion euros.
The company had already said in an unscheduled announcement in late April that profits were going to beat analyst estimates, boosted by rising reinsurance prices and a strong performance by primary insurance unit Ergo.
Munich Re said in a statement that it nevertheless took an "above average" hit in claims for major losses arising from natural catastrophes, led by a February freeze in Texas that cost the firm 450 million euros. The coronavirus pandemic posed "a considerably lower burden" over the first three months compared with last year, it added, with Covid-19 claims totalling 167 million euros.
"On top of the anticipated COVID-19 losses, there was an unusual cold snap in the United States early this year," said chief financial officer Christoph Jurecka.
He said the group was "nevertheless on track" to meet its goal of achieving a net profit of 2.8 billion euros in 2021 and a slight uptick in premiums.