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Biden’s Vaccine Patent Announcement Is Mostly Just a Smoke Screen

President Biden has decided to support the idea of suspending patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines, a move that's intended to make it easier for poor countries to legally manufacture vaccines for themselves. Hooray for Biden?

I'm not so sure. As near as I can tell, this is something of a meaningless gesture. Many of the patents involved in manufacturing the vaccines don't belong to Pfizer/Moderna/etc. in the first place. They're licensed from various other sources. Nor are patents really the biggest stumbling block for poor countries that want quicker access to vaccines. It's manufacturing know-how and shortage of raw materials. And anyway, these countries already have legal remedies available that allow them to force pharmaceutical companies to license generic versions of their drugs at low cost.

Beyond this, if the US really wants to make vaccines more available to poor countries, the solution is easy: spend lots of money. How much would it cost to purchase, say, 10 billion doses of vaccine? $50 billion? $100 billion? This is not a huge sum of money by American standards. And it would be even less if we split the cost with Europe. This is more or less the goal of Covax, the global initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, which has so far been a dismal failure.

At the risk of sounding a little too cynical, I think Biden's patent announcement represents something of a bad habit. He's done a lot of things to appease the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but many of those things are more symbolic than real. Sometimes that's because they're unlikely to ever become law; sometimes it's because they simply don't have a big effect; and other times it's because he can give in at a pretty low cost.

Politically, this is a savvy strategy, and it often has no real downside. But this time it might. The real answer to global vaccine coverage is money, and lots of handwaving about patents does nothing but obscure that.

41 thoughts on “Biden’s Vaccine Patent Announcement Is Mostly Just a Smoke Screen

  1. kenalovell

    Nor are patents really the biggest stumbling block for poor countries that want quicker access to vaccines. It's manufacturing know-how and shortage of raw materials.

    India is the biggest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, I believe. It was exporting COVID-19 vaccines before the current crisis erupted there. The issue is presumably that it has to pay license fees to patent-holders which are apparently very costly for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Assuming vaccination is going to be a program that will take at least two years to cope with the pandemic globally, after which it will be a substantial continuing task, it's not unreasonable to limit the potentially enormous profits the drug companies stand to make.

    1. Brett

      That's not the issue. They don't have the ability to make the mRNA vaccines.

      The real issue is that they've had the authorization and assistance to make the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine (under the brand name "Covishield") and have failed to make enough doses - and they exported much of the doses they did make. Making more of those would be the fastest actual way of getting doses to people, versus hoping that in six months you'll be able to mass-produce the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

  2. Brett

    I think it's mostly pointless, but it could be genuinely bad if it undermines the production and distribution of Novovax and J&J. Moderna is already not enforcing its patent on the vaccine, and even if everything lines up right it will be months (and likely 2022) before any decent number of mRNA vaccine production will be possible in India and the poor countries.

    What makes it irritating is that the bigger problem is India's government not producing enough Oxford AstraZeneca doses, despite having the authorization to do so the whole time. That would actually get doses into people much sooner than this, but instead the whole thing got framed into "US blocking the doses to protect Big Pharma" being pushed by leftists who wanted the US to flout the patent rules on vaccines the whole time.

    1. Midgard

      Leftists?? Again, nope. Like a leftist cares. When the real left returns, you won't recognize it. I would argue the Unabomber was a early prophet.

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        I see Shooter is an early giver to the Josh Hawley Anglo-Saxon Traditions PAC & Tulsi Gabbard Aloha Means Pat Buchanan PAC.

  3. Midgard

    Vaccination rates correspond with infections and East Asia/Africa have been barely been hurt by this. Most likely due to preexisting immunity.

    I agree, the virtue signaling is getting old. Lucky Biden the Republicans have just been as bad. Have a moral code, stick to it. Progtards deserve no more love than idiot contards who can't admit Trump flooded the U.S. With illegal immigrants, by design.

    1. Bardi

      "Most likely due to preexisting immunity."
      I don't believe any competent medical personnel has yet to make a comment about "immunity", concerning COVID, of any kind right now.
      Perhaps you know more than them?

      1. KenSchulz

        Not convinced Midgard has a head, perhaps a CPU. Some AI experiment that went badly wrong and produced an artificial wingnut.

  4. DFPaul

    I don’t care what Biden does as long as keep keeps taunting the rich about their soon to be raised taxes, as he did today.

    That’s not cynical. That’s the most important thing we need.

  5. D_Ohrk_E1

    Recall that last summer I pointed to the need to do two things: (1) Spend an ungodly amount of money, even if wasted, on massive manufacturing capacity, and (2) invest in companies in order to control patents.

    Warp Speed was not nearly as successful as some people have wanted to make it out to be. Money did not go to Pfizer's program until *after* they'd already gotten through drug trials and that money was for vaccine doses; it's not like we wouldn't have bought vaccine doses, absent WS. Insofar that WS was about cutting red tape, consider that Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J could have directed drug trials in other countries to bypass initial red tape. That WS was a huge success is contextually detached.

    As I've been saying for weeks, our success in vaccinating Americans is understood in a bubble. A global pandemic isn't regional and because the fire rages outside our borders, it is a trifle matter of time before a foreign mutant causes widespread breakthrough infections within our borders.

    So, what can we do?

    Dammit, use the Defense Production Act.

    Accelerate manufacturing of the precursors and materials needed to make *billions* of doses in a small window, say 6 months. Force Moderna, J&J, and Pfizer to speed up production capacity using federal money, then unilaterally slash *all* IP royalties covering all COVID vaccines to cut the cost of a dose. Finally, set the prices rather than let the drug makers set their own prices.

    1. Justin

      https://www.vox.com/22311268/covid-vaccine-shortage-moderna-pfizer-lipid-nanoparticles

      "In addition to pledging to expand its own lipid production capabilities, for instance, Pfizer is also buying lipids from a British chemical company called Croda and its Alabama-based subsidiary, Avanti Polar Lipids."

      There is plenty of money being thrown at the problem already. Everyone who can make these materials is scaling up. It just takes time to make equipment, install it, qualify it, and train people how to run it. Will you volunteer to work at one of these companies? No. Of course not. Neither will I.

      1. rick_jones

        Oh come now, surely the Defense Production Act is a wondrous thing which can produce what is desired as fast as the stroke of the presidential pen? ...

        1. Crissa

          Uhh, it is, because it can tell a company to take the money and make the stuff.

          It provides both a carrot and a stick. A company under a defense authorization can tell its creditors that clearly uncle sam is good for it.

    2. skeptonomist

      Yes, the whole approach has been wrong from the beginning, on both the national and international scales. The US no longer waits until war is declared (or until the President decides we are at war) to build up its military capacity - it manufactures the capacity beforehand. To handle major non-war emergencies like a pandemic the government will have to take control and anticipate beforehand. This may be somewhat simplified if the promise of mRNA vaccines in borne out. But this can't be done by expecting private companies to get their profits from the current demand. The government must supply the money for contracts or build the facilities itself.

    3. lawnorder

      The vaccine makers, potential vaccine makers, and suppliers to vaccine makers all understand there is huge demand. There is a very strong financial incentive for all of them to ramp up production as fast as possible. The best that could be accomplished by invoking the Defence Production Act would be to give a whole lot of companies orders to do something they're already doing as fast as they can. In the worst case, which is more likely, invoking the Defence Production Act would result in bureaucrats who think they know better issuing orders that would disrupt the supply chain and actually slow production.

  6. Justin

    Even if these poor countries can figure out the last parts of the vaccine formulation, filling, and packaging processes, there is this raw material issue for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines which still needs to be worked out.

    https://www.vox.com/22311268/covid-vaccine-shortage-moderna-pfizer-lipid-nanoparticles

    Mr. Drum is, I think, correct in his assessment of the politics. "Pfizer, which is in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech for vaccine development and sales, has said it expects to manufacture 2.5 billion doses of the two-shot vaccine in 2021.'

    Why would we want to endanger that production capacity by diverting resources to some other place? This stuff doesn't just magically appear and the experience at places like Emergent Biosolutions (funded by the US government!) ought to be a warning. The Chinese and Russians have vaccines. Let them share the wealth with "poor countries". Oh wait... no one wants that product. Oops.

    Anyway... there is already adequate supply in the US. The people who want a vaccine can get it here and all these extra doses of vaccine are going to end up in "poor countries" and the EU soon enough. I'm guessing that at most 40% of adults around the world will ever get the vaccine so that means Pfizer alone has enough to vaccinate all the willing people over 20 years old already. Throw in Moderna, AZ, J&J, Sputnik V, and the Chinese vaccines and there will be plenty to go around.

    I get that some are impatient and others are suffering. My own mother died in December just as the vaccines were being shared with nursing homes. I get it. But the glut of vaccines just needs time for distribution. The cold chain requirements for the mRNA vaccines are going to keep them from wide distribution among the very poor anyway.

    It just takes time to make billions of vials. By the time these "poor countries" get up to speed, the crisis will be over.

  7. Justin

    https://www.vox.com/22311268/covid-vaccine-shortage-moderna-pfizer-lipid-nanoparticles

    "In addition to pledging to expand its own lipid production capabilities, for instance, Pfizer is also buying lipids from a British chemical company called Croda and its Alabama-based subsidiary, Avanti Polar Lipids."

    There is plenty of money being thrown at the problem already. Everyone who can make these materials is scaling up. It just takes time to make equipment, install it, qualify it, and train people how to run it. Will you volunteer to work at one of these companies? No. Of course not. Neither will I.

  8. Jasper_in_Boston

    I dunno. I think the US is far from over it's post-Trumpian hangover, and the well of xenophobia in the country is currently running very deep. This is regrettable, but I'm not at all sure it's possible to greenlight additional tens of billions in global vaccine aid at this very moment. Maybe this PR exercise will prepare the ground for more substantive aid in the near future.

    1. Midgard

      Sorry, but this post is pure nonsense. Trump and xenophobia are irrelevant. Trump has little to do with that and you know it. But keep on muttering dialects.

      Ps, Trump was one of the least xenophobic Presidents in recent times. Between his cons and taking bribes from foreign countries plutocrats, he delivered much to foreign interests. Much of his immigration policy was to boost Russian trafficking income. Looks liked it worked.

  9. Mitchell Young

    I don't know enough about this to comment but.... Does it mean that Moderna etc's intellectual property is now going to be 'open source'? That seems unwise. As Mr. Drum says, why not just manufacture the vaccines here and donate them to the 'developing' world.

    Oh, and wouldn't it be better for the entire world if India developed a rounded scientific sector instead of trying to put their people in every coding and electrical engineering job in the world?

    1. Crissa

      The process may be open, but no one has the right kitchen. So it doesn't matter.

      We will need to make the doses, yes.

      1. Crissa

        And India has a perfectly fine pharmaceutical segment. They produce lots of modern medicines and vaccines. (I've bought from there regularly when I could be assured I was getting the real stuff) Not everywhere is going to come up with a vaccine in record time.

    2. lawnorder

      India is the world's biggest manufacturer of vaccines. That implies that they have a healthy bio-tech sector.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      I am assuming Modi will use that limited supply as a stealth genocide of Indian Muslims, making sure the 20 million doses reach Hindu arms "by chance".

      Similar to how Larry Hogan made sure Maryland's vaxxx count predominantly went to underpopulated, Republican-voting, mostly white counties -- where the MAGATS don't want to be vaxxx'd anyway -- rather than to the duskier areas like Baltimore & Prince George's, & Democrat-friendlier MoCo.

      1. Mitchell Young

        India needs.

        Public health professionals
        Sanitation Engineers
        Civil Engineers

        It needs to stop exporting them to the rest of the world...or we just need to stop taking them.

    2. lawnorder

      20 million doses is a fairly big drop. Make 20 million doses 140 times and you've produced two doses for every Indian. If I was trying to fill even a small bucket one drop at a time, I would expect to need a lot more than 140 drops.

  10. Special Newb

    Unsurprisingly I think you are.... wrong.

    Even if it was symbolic and I don't know, It looks good domestically which is pretty important since the republicans are racing toward fascism and keeping the dem based pumped is probably the best way keep up his chances in 2022. Since their voters no longer care about elections keeping them out of power is the most important political task.

  11. arghasnarg

    Agree, that it is mostly symbolic.

    > Politically, this is a savvy strategy, and it often has no real downside. But this time it might.

    But I'm having trouble understanding how this could be an actual negative. What are you thinking of?

    The only possibility I cam up with is substitution - you think this announcement will displace any more useful action. Is that it?

  12. Crissa

    People get stuck on slogans.

    We should definitely add 'pay for the rest of the vaccines' on the list for the budget later this year.

  13. Loxley

    'Politically, this is a savvy strategy, and it often has no real downside. But this time it might. '

    Actually, it's allowed progressives to single out and target those Dems funded by Big Pharma, and stick them on the front page.

  14. illilillili

    It's not clear that spending lots of money is necessary. The doses have been contracted for and production is ramping up. Worldwide, currently 20M people are getting a dose each day. 1 billion people in 50 days. And the rate of production and delivery is still ramping up.

    Spending more money now might produce results in 6 months when about 70% of the world population will have received at least one dose of vaccine...

    1. D_Ohrk_E1

      20M doses a day would be more than sufficient if you were dealing with a genetically stable virus and there was durable immunological memory to it.

      Neither is true, here. The world needs vastly more capacity than 20M doses a day. Speed is critical. Without small windows, we're essentially guiding SARS-CoV-2 towards finding the necessary accumulation of mutations to "adapt" and cause breakthrough infections and reinfections.

      But hey, I'm willing to wait 6 months and revisit this topic by comparing and contrasting your statements to mine with what actually happened, globally.

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