New Delhi: Around 59 per cent US voters support waiving all patent protections on life-saving medicines for critical diseases like Covid-19 in order to produce generic and cheaper drugs, a new survey has found.
Data for Progress, a US think tank, and Progressive International, an international organisation, carried out the poll between 30 April and 2 May. It included a sample size of 1,402 likely voters in the US.
Only 28 per cent of the respondents disagreed with waiving patent protections for life-saving medicines in the survey.
On 5 May, the Joe Biden administration announced that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, as countries struggle to manufacture the life-saving doses.
India, which is battling a monstrous second wave of the virus, welcomed the decision. The proposal to waive intellectual property rights and patents on Covid vaccines and other products was first floated by India and South Africa on 2 October 2020.
Albert Bourla, chief executive officer of pharma giant Pfizer, has however said he is against the proposal now backed by the US, and added that production should be ramped up in existing facilities, instead.
The survey showed bipartisan support for waiving patent protections — 71 per cent registered Democrats expressed their support, and so did 47 per cent registered Republicans.
The proposal floated by India and South Africa aimed to make the Covid vaccines, medicines, ventilators and other such items cheaper and accessible, thereby freeing them up from the global norms under the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Agreement.
“While a temporary waiver would go a long way in bringing the world out of the current pandemic, it will do nothing to deal with other existing and future health emergencies. The demand for a TRIPS suspension must precede a demand for a total transformation of the pharmaceutical patent system,” David Adler, general coordinator of Progressive International, said in a statement.
The poll sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey’s margin of error is ±3 percentage points.
Also read: Even if WTO waives patent rights, no country can start making a Covid vaccine immediately
Poll shows Americans want Moderna to share vaccine tech
The poll also revealed that a majority of US voters wanted President Joe Biden to compel pharmaceutical company Moderna to share its vaccine technology with manufacturers around the world.
The Moderna vaccine is taxpayer-funded, with the US government contributing funds to enable the company to build the capacity to produce its vaccine.
“The new findings reflect a growing frustration with the primacy of profit in the public health system,” Dr Mamka Anyona, a scholar of global health governance and member of the Progressive International Secretariat, said in the statement.
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