The World Trade Organization will meet later this week to discuss waiving intellectual property (IP) rights or patents for COVID-19 vaccines.
If it does go through, companies in poorer countries will have the legal ability to reproduce big pharmaceutical firms’ vaccines.
The argument for waiving patent and IP rights is it would increase access to vaccines in poorer countries. The counter view is that IP rights and protections are critical to economic development and innovation.
NTD spoke to the policy director of nonprofit group U.S. Inventor to learn more about this.