Professor Aisling McMahon:

I agree. I wish to elaborate on what Mr. Eynikel has mentioned. I am actually one of the authors of the paper mentioned. Together with colleagues in the London School of Economics, University of Leeds and University of Kent, we argue that the intellectual property waiver proposed was a necessary and proportionate step in 2020 and 2021 and still is now, for various reasons. In the paper, which was supported by over 200 intellectual-property academics all over the world in an open letter, we highlight that innovation is one of the arguments that is often presented but that when one digs deeper into those details, one notes those arguments could be questioned, particularly in the vaccine context.

First, as Mr. Eynikel has mentioned, intellectual property rights traditionally have been recognised as a very poor incentive for vaccine manufacture, for several reasons on which I will be happy to expand. In the past, as Mr. Eynikel has highlighted in some examples, we have not had vaccines even though we knew a disease was likely. There can be a risk of disease but not necessarily a guaranteed market. In the Covid-19 context, it is important to state there has been very significant public funding, which is very good, and incredible scientific research, which should be acknowledged as excellent. On top of that, however, public funding, advance-purchase agreements and other factors de-risked the production of Covid-19 vaccines. The reality is that if we maintain intellectual property rights without recourse to any interventions for low- and middle-income countries, vaccines will be distributed not necessarily on the basis of health need, as we saw in 2020 and 2021, but rather on the basis of deals done between holders of intellectual property rights and countries that may have more money to facilitate access. Low- and middle-income countries are those that are most likely to suffer, as pointed out. At the moment, we may have more supplies but the situation is in flux because we could face a new variant at any moment or, indeed, a new pandemic. If we do, low- and middle-income countries will not have the capacity built up, which is what they are asking for.

It is important to state that while there may be some supplies of vaccines going to low- and middle-income countries, they do not have a sustainable supply. Many of those countries are asking to be able to have technology-transfer-related intellectual-property waivers so they can produce their own supply of vaccines, as we in Ireland and others have done.