A bad proposal is brewing in the WTO

It is well known that vaccines have played a fundamental role in mitigating the pandemic. However, little is said about how in the last two years treatments have also been invented that help prevent or combat Covid in the elderly or with other conditions.

For example, a new antiviral called Paxlovid can reduce hospitalizations for high-risk patients by 89% when given in the first few days of symptoms. Paxlovid are pills that are taken at home over several days. Since it is a treatment that requires minimal medical assistance and avoids the need for respiratory support, it offers enormous advantages for countries with fragile health systems, such as Mexico.

Unfortunately these drugs are not reaching everyone who needs them, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Some claim that the solution to this problem is to remove intellectual property rights.

Following this logic, members of the World Trade Organization are debating a proposal by India and South Africa to amend the international treaty that governs intellectual property—the TRIPS Agreement—to temporarily suspend intellectual property rights over these barriers. The proposal suggests that allowing multiple companies to produce cheap copies of patented drugs would speed up access.

However, this initiative is a serious mistake. In the first place, the real barrier to access to these drugs is distribution, not supply. According to Airfinity, to date 110 million doses of treatments against Covid have been produced, against an estimated global demand of 50 million doses.

In some regions access to doctors and health facilities is limited. Infrastructure can make it difficult to deliver supplies. In many cases, public health systems lack resources. In Mexico, researcher César Palacios González has denounced how corruption can lead to the wealthiest strata monopolizing treatment at the expense of people with lower incomes.

Another situation that explains the low demand for Covid treatments is that some of the most affected countries have been carrying out very few tests in relation to the scale of infections. Mexico has one of the worst performances on the planet, with just 138,162 tests carried out per million inhabitants (while Austria, the best-positioned country, has carried out 21.5 million tests per million). The number of tests has fallen globally since the peak of the Omicron variant in early 2022.

All this conspires so that many patients obtain treatments even when the offer is abundant. Correcting these imbalances is a matter of public health policy, not of intellectual property as is being discussed in the WTO.

The other problem is that the producers of these drugs are already using the regulatory framework of intellectual property to enter into licensing agreements with other manufacturers. Five generic companies in 12 countries have licensed through the UN Medicines Patent Pool to manufacture generic Paxlovid, giving it access to about 53% of the world’s population in 95 low- and middle-income countries. Other companies have also created licenses for their Covid treatments.

These voluntary licenses are the best way to share technology with other players as they allow for an orderly and secure transfer of technical knowledge, much of which must be done in person. This is particularly relevant for more complex biological technologies, such as Covid vaccines and treatments. If intellectual property is seized, there will be no incentive for cooperation in technology transfer, which means delays and potentially dangerous mistakes.

Furthermore, voluntary licenses also maintain the incentives to invest in future innovations, something relevant in the case of future pandemics. This cannot be emphasized enough.

Suspending intellectual property rights in the WTO does not resolve any of the barriers to access to treatments against Covid. It would undermine present and future R&D and derail existing production agreements. WTO members, including Mexico, should reject this proposal and focus on things that truly make a difference.

*Philip Stevens is CEO of the Geneva Network in London.