An agreement on TRIPS - what will it achieve?

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Hi John,

Last night, an agreement on Covid-19 intellectual property rights was finally announced at the World Trade Organisation Ministerial summit in Geneva.

I will make no bones, this ‘deal’ is a pale imitation of the waiver proposed by India and South Africa over 20 months ago.

But while the agreement doesn’t yet help countries in the global south produce their own treatments or help firms access the vital trade secrets that would speed up manufacturing, there is also hope in some key areas.

Analysis is ongoing, this deal may give South Africa more room to commercialise and export its reverse-engineered version of Moderna’s vaccine. If this happens, then we’ve achieved something very important.

This project in Cape Town was set up not just to make medicines, but to share everything it learns with countries around the world. Its mission is the very opposite of the monopolising, profiteering Big Pharma model. And if it succeeds, it could play a significant role in building the new pharmaceutical system we desperately need.

There are certainly deep limitations to this deal and we should also be furious with the UK government for kicking the can down the road for 18 months, utterly cold to the fact that 30,000 people were dying of Covid-19 each day. But in the end the UK has been dragged to the table, even as it kicked, screamed and yelled Big Pharma’s talking points.

Meanwhile, Big Pharma lobbyists - who spent millions to make sure no agreement was reached - are clearly rattled this morning (1). Even they understand that this deal represents a global agreement that intellectual property monopolies have cost lives and prolonged the pandemic.

Nearly three decades ago, rich countries frog-marched the world into the TRIPS agreement which made heavily-patented medicines the unchallengeable status quo. Today this sacred status has been called into question.

It is now up to us now to keep up the pressure, support alternatives to flourish and make this the beginning of the end for big pharma monopolies.

Thanks for all your support,

Tim Bierley
Pharma campaigner, Global Justice Now

Notes

Big Pharma shows its displeasure at the deal on Twitter
Before the outcome, Nick Dearden wrote an article for the Guardian explaining why time is up for the WT O

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