Unlocking vaccine IPs provides a key

The decision by the US to withdraw its objection to waiving patent and intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines is welcome. There would be two practical advantages for vaccine production in India, if the waiver comes through at the World Trade Organization. One, it would be simpler to extend the licences for the Astra-Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sputnik V and Novavax vaccines, which have already been granted to assorted Indian vaccine makers, to more companies capable of utilising them. Two, Pune-based Gennova’s indigenous mRNA-based vaccine would be free of patent-infringement challenges, when it goes into production. India should first waive the IPR on Covaxin, or buy it out from Bharat Biotech, and transfer the knowhow to other companies, to scale up vaccine production.

Waiving IPRs on Covid vaccines will not see many countries jumping into vaccine production. That calls for, besides patented knowledge, latent knowledge. India is one of the few countries of the developing world to possess such knowledge in plenty. However, there would still be hurdles such as restricted availability of key ingredients and some trade secrets, which, if not actively shared, might prove difficult to reverse engineer. So, in parallel, the government must start an all-out campaign for indigenous capability in producing the assorted ingredients that go into vaccine manufacture. It must call on Indian biotechnologists, designers and fabricators of the equipment used in vaccine production. They make a fair share of the global personnel in this line of work. They must be helped to set up and run facilities in India to produce these ingredients at scale in India, with assured funding from GoI.

India and South Africa submitted a proposal to the WTO last year calling for a waiver of patent and intellectual property rights for vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tests relating to Covid. The US decision is limited to vaccines, but still represents progress, as it has turned others, such as the EU and Japan, more cooperative.