We were planning an editorial on the IP waiver, but this excellent post from @dereklowe summarizes succinctly most of what we would have said…and so much more eloquently. 1/7
https://twitter.com/Dereklowe/status/1390329225807282177
IP rights are not really the problem constraining vaccine supply...the key issue is global manufacturing capacity and supply chains. 2/7
Most countries simply don’t have sufficient manufacturing expertise and infrastructure to produce approved adenoviral or modified RNA vaccines, and to create such capacity from scratch in each nation is a pipe dream. 3/7
Waiving IP rights is a big deal for small companies where IP is often the lion's share or a large part of their value proposition, much more so than large companies, where trade secrets come more into play. 4/7
Trade secrets are more of a problem than patent rights. The know-how for producing vaccines is often trade secrets or redacted from approval documents as confidential business information. This is the reason biosimilars proceeded at a glacial pace. 5/7 nature.com/articles/nbt.2….
If we waive IP in every pandemic, then when the next one comes around will investors fund pandemic-related efforts in startups? Fewer startups will mean fewer innovative solutions developed. 6/7
The patent system is imperfect and often abused by over-filings with broad and opaque claims, trolls, patent evergreening and over-aggressive licensing. But in many ways, patents are not half as bad as trade secrets (which seem to be becoming more prevalent in biotech). 7/7
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