Letter to Joseph R. Biden, President - Carter, Buchanan lead more than 100 Republicans against waiving COVID-19 vaccine IP protections

Letter

Dear Mr. President,

We write to you today to express our profound concern with the Administration's support for
waiving intellectual property (IP) protections related to COVID-19 vaccines under the World
Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIP). We remain committed to working together to address the global needs of vaccine
distribution, but this proposed waiver will not help us meet that goal. Intellectual Property (IP)
protections have fostered life-saving biomedical innovation, strengthened the U.S. economy,
created millions of good paying jobs, and made our country the world leader in the development
of cutting-edge diagnostics, treatments, and cures. We firmly believe that waiving these IP
protections will prove to be disastrous and counterproductive in our fight against this global
pandemic and urge you in the strongest possible terms to rescind your support for this policy.

The real challenges in fighting the pandemic include tackling major logistical, manufacturing,
and health care delivery hurdles. Weakening IP rules will not solve any of these challenges. The
United States Trade Representative's (USTR) announcement is deeply disappointing and will do
nothing to accelerate the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Quite the contrary, waiving
the IP protections would only serve to undermine innovation and make it even more difficult for
industry to respond to both the current pandemic and future health emergencies. Moreover, if
implemented, the proposal could have the opposite effect, by reducing the availability of critical
raw materials necessary to manufacture these vaccines. Recently, Germany's Chancellor Angela
Merkel rejected the notion of waiving global IP protection because of the additional hurdles it
would cause in the manufacture of these vaccines. Chancellor's Merkel's opposition underscores
the dangers of this policy.

Rather than taking the extraordinary step of waiving IP rights, the Administration should instead
focus on addressing the actual reasons behind the global unavailability of COVID-19 vaccines.
Instead of spending time on negotiations with the WTO that prolong the worldwide pandemic
response, we should work to ship stockpiled vaccines to those countries whose regulatory
authorities have approved them. We should also seek to expand the domestic production of
vaccines to ensure a secure supply chain, create American jobs, and increase the supply abroad.
Manufacturers have already worked diligently to scale up their capacity and taken the
unprecedented step of entering into agreements with their competitors to increase vaccine
supply. While the Administration pushes these waivers, vaccine manufacturers have been
diligently working with other countries to address their vaccine needs.

Importantly, the proposal also threatens American jobs and undermines the long-term
competitiveness of our biopharmaceutical industry by allowing countries like China to profit
from our innovation. The Chinese government, as part of its Made in China 2025 Plan, is intent
on expanding its domestic production of biomedical products, largely through theft of American
technology and innovation. Indeed, according to both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
Department of Homeland Security, the Chinese government has been engaged in a sophisticated
and wide-ranging effort to steal American COVID-19 vaccine research -- particularly mRNA
technology, an area in which China is lagging far behind. And yet, even as the FBI and DHS
investigate and express concerns about China's action to acquire this information and
technology, USTR has proposed voluntarily gifting it to China.

The two FDA-authorized vaccines that utilize new mRNA technology were the result of decades
of work and billions of dollars in research and development. Under your proposal, however,
China and its allies would now have access to this technology and benefit from private and
American taxpayer investment. It would allow them to create an entire industry designed to
compete with American companies and further limit our national and supply chain biomedical
security. The result would be a disastrous loss of American jobs, less investment in domestic
research and development, and increased reliance on foreign supply chains.

Not only would the waiver of IP rights set a terrible precedent and disincentivize companies
from further investment in such research, but it would also do very little to increase the global
manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccines require highly sophisticated manufacturing
facilities with specialized equipment and trained employees. It would take months -- if not years
for these countries to construct fully operational manufacturing facilities. Afterwards, we would
be faced with the prospect of having a large supply of complex vaccines being produced and
distributed worldwide by unqualified manufacturers with little or no regulatory oversight.
Additionally, it is very likely that these foreign countries would also utilize the knowledge they
gained from our COVID-19 vaccines to make other, unrelated medical products designed to
compete directly with the U.S.

In your recent speech to Congress, you promised to protect American jobs and bring foreign
manufacturing back to the U.S. This proposal runs directly counter to those promises and, in fact,
disincentivizes the kind of American ingenuity that brought us these lifesaving COVID-19
vaccines in record time. It is absolutely critical that any agreement with the WTO does not
threaten U.S. jobs and innovation or benefit America's competitors.

We strongly urge you to work with Congress, industry and other governments to rapidly and
responsibly increase the supply and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide and rescind
this harmful and misguided proposal. It is imperative that we lead the world in increasing global
access to COVID-19 vaccines while also affirming our nation's long and storied history of
protecting IP to spur innovation. American jobs, innovation, and the health and welfare of the
entire world are at stake. We look forward to your prompt response.

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