Pfizer, BioNTech and Merkel defend vaccine patents

A day after the President of the United States, Joe biden, will pronounce in favor of release patents of covid-19 vaccines, a global claim for less developed countries to have greater opportunity to access doses, laboratory Pfizer, the pharmaceutical BioNTech and the government of Germany They expressed their rejection of the initiative.

The president of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, said Thursday, May 6, that he rejected the proposal that had obtained US approval to temporarily suspend patents, and instead suggested ramping up production at existing factories.

Bourla claimed that his company, which developed a vaccine with German BioNTech, is not “not at all” in favor of the US call to fight the pandemic, as noted in an interview with AFP.

In the same spirit, the government of Angela Merkel the intention is that vaccine patents remain “protected”. “The suggestion by the United States to release patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines has important implications for vaccine production as a whole,” a German government spokesperson said.

The protection of intellectual property, he said, “is a source of innovation and should continue to do so in the future”.

Biden government requested publication of patents for Covid-19 vaccines

For its part, the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said today that patent protection for anti-covid-19 vaccines “does not limit production and does not explain the mishaps of supply in the world”.

“Patents are not the limiting factor on the production or supply of our vaccine. They will not increase global production or the supply of doses in the short to medium term,” the laboratory said.

The company warns that “if none of the requirements are met, the quality, safety and efficacy of the vaccine cannot be guaranteed by the manufacturer or the inventor.” .

The production of the mensajero RNA vacuna, which BioNTech y el estadounidense Pfizer desarrolló, “is a complete process desarrollado lasting más de una década. Todas las etapas deben ser definidas y ejecutadas de manera precisa”, for a “personal experimentado”, argumentó the laboratory.

Alberto Fernández celebrated Biden supporting publication of vaccine patents

Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Poutine and the European Union, in favor of the release of patents

On Wednesday, the United States announced that it was supporting the lifting of these protections for covid-19 vaccines in order to “end the pandemic as quickly as possible”.

“This is a global health crisis and the extraordinary circumstances of the covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement posted on her Twitter account. .

Following his statements, this Thursday the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, he said he was “totally in favor” of this initiative. “Yes, we obviously have to make this vaccine a global public good,” Macron said at the inauguration of the largest vaccination center in Paris, at the Porte de Versailles.

However, he felt that in the short term, priority should be given to “donation of doses” and “to production in collaboration with the poorest countries”.

Macron’s statement is a change in the position of France, which until now had opposed the measure, believing it could discourage innovation, and argued that patents should only be lifted last resort.

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The Russian president also joined the endorsement Vladimir Poutine: “Of course, Russia would support such an idea.”, he said at a meeting to coordinate actions against the pandemic and which was broadcast on television, in which he asked the Russian government to study this possibility.

“Under the current conditions, as I have said many times before, we should not think about making the maximum profit, but rather about ensuring the safety of people,” he said.

The European Union, which until now had remained firmly opposed to requests for temporary patent suspensions to speed up covid-19 vaccination campaigns, said on Thursday it had changed its position.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU was “ready to discuss” ways to ensure vaccines reach all corners of the world quickly.

“The EU is ready to talk about any proposal that responds to the crisis in an efficient and pragmatic way. And that is why we are ready to talk about how the lifting of intellectual property can help achieve this goal”, did he declare.

AG CP