Undermining intellectual property is not the correct route to unlocking increased vaccine access, the writer argues. Picture: 123RF/David Izquierdo Roger
Vaccines and medical therapeutics development require serious investment in terms of expertise, skills, time and capital. Much as undermining property rights through introducing expropriation without compensation into the constitution would discourage capital formation and risk-taking in terms of starting new businesses, so too would diluting IP rights disincentivise medical innovation.
Aspen Pharmacare completed a deal in March to package, sell and distribute Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine. Yet the predicted high demand in the wake of global “vaccine apartheid” has not materialised. CEO Stephen Saad warned in early May that the company would be forced to repurpose about half of its vaccine production capacity if orders did not pick up.
Without strong IP rights it becomes ever less likely that voluntary technology transfers will take place between companies in different countries. Such voluntarism is based on co-operation, appropriate training and resource-sharing, all of which are key to establishing additional manufacturing capacity.
In April 2021 India imposed export restrictions, which meant global pooled vaccine procurement mechanism Covax was about 190-million doses behind schedule by June 2021. This delayed the response to the pandemic in low- and middle-income countries. That hurdle, and many similar ones, could have been avoided.
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