January 3, 2024
Every holiday season marks a time when people are swept up in the spirit of giving. Unfortunately, the Biden administration remains oblivious to the fact that our nation’s feelings of generosity do not extend to handing over some of our most valuable American-made intellectual property to foreign competitors.
Defying sound policy and common sense, the White House continues to embrace policies that dilute the value of the patents, inventions and technology it took scientists and medical professionals years and billions of dollars to create.
In October, the International Trade Commission released its report on a possible expansion of the intellectual property rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to include COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. The administration supported the TRIPS Waiver in its original form, but this most recent report fails to justify gifting even more American IP to foreign rivals.
Bringing cures and treatments to the market entails substantial financial investments, clinical trials and regulatory approvals. Despite this risky and lengthy undertaking, rigorous IP protections serve as critical incentives for medical innovators to invest in research and development. Diluting these protections discourages taking on the risks and costs of creating cutting-edge treatments and harms the countless consumers and patients who rely on revolutionary innovations and lifesaving care.
An expanded TRIPS Waiver that diminishes IP protections would deter the private sector from committing the necessary resources to expand the library of knowledge critical to developing a response to outbreaks and pandemics such as we just experienced with COVID-19. Fewer innovations and available treatments at a time of growing and unexpected public health concerns leave us vulnerable and unprepared for a future public health emergency.
What is especially troubling is the TRIPS Waiver gives away valuable medical technology to repressive regimes and adversaries worldwide. Increasing government interference with an expanded TRIPS Waiver would delight China. For instance, China could use COVID-19 technologies to undermine the economic competitiveness of the United States and its allies. When China’s theft of American IP already costs us as much as $600 billion a year, it is utterly unthinkable that the White House would lobby to reward China even further with access to some of our most valuable technological assets.
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