Finance Ranking Member, 13 Senators Argue Against Broadening COVID IP Waiver at WTO

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, along with six Democrats, six Republicans and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, urged the administration to come out against a proposal at the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. There already is an IP waiver for vaccines against the disease. The waivers, which loosen the Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights, or TRIPS, in the body, "could have unintended consequences for the development of new treatments for dangerous diseases, while doing little to improve access to medicine," they argued.

They said that the earlier waiver wasn't used, and U.S. companies had more than 400 voluntary licensing partnerships. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asked the International Trade Commission to examine the impact of broadening TRIPS waivers (see 2212190068), and the senators quoted that report, which said, "current levels of manufacturing far exceed purchases" of treatments such as Paxlovid.

"Given the negligible impact of the 2022 waiver, the abundant supply of COVID-19 treatments, and the fact that the [World Health Organization] has declared an end to the global public health emergency, it is hard to see any validity to the continuing pressure brought by certain WTO members to waive IP rights for these products," the senators argued.