'In Closed-Door Talks, the U.S. and E.U. Are Excluding Covid-19 Tests, Antivirals From Intellectual Property Waiver Negotiations', 28 February 2022

"The Biden administration has touted its seriousness about taking global action to end the Covid-19 pandemic. But a summary of a February 22 meeting of the TRIPS Council, which oversees the WTO’s intellectual property rules, shows that the United States is participating in high-level, closed-door negotiations for an intellectual property waiver that have effectively determined that any final agreement, if approved, will only apply to vaccines — excluding diagnostics and therapeutics.

The exclusion flies in the face of demands from global civil society organizations, which have called for an intellectual property waiver on all Covid-19 products, from vaccines to antivirals and tests. U.S. officials have themselves emphasized the importance of antivirals and tests for their own populations, these groups argue, so why shouldn’t those treatments also be important for tackling Covid-19 internationally?

Public health advocates are concerned that both the United States and the European Union are pushing for such narrow terms for a global vaccine agreement that the benefits of any final arrangement will be severely limited.

The summary of the TRIPS Council meeting, which was closed to the press, was drafted by Geneva-based diplomats. It paraphrases the remarks of participants in the meeting. The summary notes that the United States, European Union, India and South Africa have been holding private negotiations about an intellectual property waiver.

India and South Africa initially proposed the waiver in October 2020, with the goal of enabling access to cheaper, generic Covid-19 treatments, and the proposal has since garnered 65 cosponsors, with the Global South heavily represented among them. The proposal calls for an intellectual property waiver ​“in relation to prevention, containment or treatment of Covid-19.” It proclaims that intellectual property rules should not ​“create barriers to the timely access to affordable medical products including vaccines and medicines or to scaling-up of research, development, manufacturing and supply of medical products essential to combat Covid-19.” (The proposal was revised in May 2021 to clarify that the waiver applies to all vaccines, diagnostics, treatments and medical supplies.)..."