WTO approves vaccine patent waivers in bid to increase COVID-19 shots to poorer nations
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Member countries of the World Trade Organization agreed Friday to a vaccine patent waiver as a way to boost supplies of COVID-19 shots to lower income countries.
The agreement is seen as a defeat for drugmakers that manufacture the vaccine -- such as Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)/BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) -- as it could undermine future sales. They had argued that waving intellectual property protections wouldn't increase supply to poorer nations and could negatively impact pharma R&D.

"The premise of an intellectual-property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines was flawed from the outset," Thomas Cueni, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, said, Bloomberg reported. "To this day, there is no evidence that IP has been a barrier to COVID-19 vaccine production or access."
In May 2021, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai expressed support for waiving IP protections for COVID vaccines.