Due to the emergency situation that India and South Africa are going through as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, various countries belonging to the World Trade Organization (WTO) have put on the table the question of whether or not it is necessary to suspend patents for the SARS-CoV2 vaccine are provisionally available.

What is unexpected about this initiative has been the position of US President Joe Biden, who last week spoke out in favor of the suspension of intellectual property rights for the vaccine.

However, various leaders of the European Union intervened against the initiative, because like the pharmaceutical industry, they argue that suspending patents is not the limiting factor to combat the pandemic, but manufacturing capacities and high standards of quality.

Angela Merker, German Chancellor, expressed in an email that the US plan would create “serious complications” for the production of vaccines. In addition, the industry assured that without the incentive of profits derived from spending on research and development, drug manufacturers may not move as aggressively to make vaccines in the future.

For his part, Emmanuel Macron, asserted that the main problem of the vaccine shortage is not in the intellectual property of the patents, but in the distribution of the doses. He stressed that no action should financially punish the companies that invented the vaccine technology.

In this vein, various institutions of the European Commission are not closed to negotiating an eventual withdrawal of vaccine patents, but from Brussels, a voluntary transfer of technology with agreements between different pharmaceutical companies to increase the production.

After the initial debate, the heads of State and Government of the European Union agreed at the Porto summit a response to the US president, arguing that the short-term solution to eradicate the lack of doses in poor countries will be that States United Kingdom and United Kingdom end ban on export of vaccines and ingredients.