TRIPS Weber Agreement at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference

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June 20, 2022
Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association
Chairman Yasushi Okada

The Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA) expresses its great disappointment with the TRIPS Weber agreement on COVID-19 vaccine reached at the 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (MC-12) in Geneva on June 17, 2022. This MC-12 agreement sends the wrong message to people around the world that intellectual property rights are a barrier to pandemic preparedness rather than a safer and faster way to bring new medical technologies to patients.

Intellectual property rights have supported the development and expansion of safe and effective vaccine production at an unprecedented rate, enabling the production of 13.9 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to date. The IP framework has provided the basis for the establishment of over 380 voluntary partnerships for COVID-19 vaccine (88% of which involve technology transfer) in record time *1. The TRIPS Weber fails to recognize this role that IP rights have played and further fails to provide any 1 TRIPS Weber believes that the agreement fails to recognize this role played by IPRs and offers no effective solutions, which could have serious implications for innovation and global health security. The TRIPS Weber will lead to the dismantling of the very IP framework that has provided a solution to address COVID-19 and has facilitated an unprecedented number of partnerships, voluntary licensing and knowledge sharing during this pandemic, and will lead to the dismantling of similar frameworks in the future. and will have a negative ripple effect on similar frameworks in the future.

It is also clear that the TRIPS-Weber is an ill-timed and unnecessary solution when sufficient vaccine production is already available. This is an issue that each country must address. This MC-12 agreement sends the wrong message not only to the pharmaceutical industry, but to all sectors responsible for innovation.

Regardless of this MC-12 agreement, the pharmaceutical industry will continue to do its utmost to bring the new coronavirus out of the epidemic as soon as possible and save as many lives as possible, in close collaboration with the government agencies and other concerned parties in each country.

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