LSAA raises concern about the European Commission’s support of TRIPS waiver:
In response to the European Commission’s recent announcement that the European Union (EU) will support overriding intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 vaccines, the Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance e.V., a coalition of life science venture capital organizations focused on raising awareness of the critical role venture capital plays in the development of new therapies, medicines, devices, and technology, issued the following statement: “We are disappointed that after standing strong for innovation for so long, the European Commission has now changed their stance to support progressing conversations that will result in the abrogation of patent protections of COVID-19 technologies—an action that will simply do nothing to address the problem at hand: the distribution of billions of vaccines that will have to be disposed of if they are not effectively transported to their final destination and given to the global citizens who have long been awaiting their arrival. As previously noted by life science investors, philanthropists, academics, policymakers, stripping IP protections will not provide a solution in any way to this substantial issue. Instead, it suggests that decades of European commitment to innovation, which is the reason why the EU played such an integral role in the development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, cannot be relied upon.”
Read the full statement here.