The chief executive of Pfizer said waiving the patents of Covid-19 vaccines would “unleash a scramble” for scarce raw materials and discourage innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, as he joined other vaccine makers in opposing the proposal.
Albert Bourla said that suspending intellectual property rights “threatens to disrupt the flow of raw materials?.?.?.?putting the safety and security of all at risk.”
Bourla’s comments added to the roster of pharmaceutical groups and executives who have argued against the notion of waiving intellectual property rights. Moderna and Novavax both issued similar statements this week.
The World Trade Organization’s proposal aims to boost vaccine manufacturing, especially in developing countries where vaccination campaigns have lagged behind those of western countries.
Bourla said that at the start of the pandemic he became “personally concerned” that developed countries had ordered most of Pfizer’s vaccine doses and he reached out to the governments of low and middle income countries to encourage them to reserve shots.
“However, most of them decided to place orders with other vaccine makers either because mRNA technology was untested at that time or because they were offered local production options,” he said in a statement on LinkedIn.
He added that “infrastructure is not the bottleneck for us manufacturing faster,” but rather “the restriction is the scarcity of highly specialised raw materials needed to produce our vaccine”, and that waiving patents would harm Pfizer’s ability to source the substances.
He said the drugmaker spent $2bn before knowing whether it could successfully develop a vaccine but was unsure whether smaller biotech companies “that are totally dependent on accessing capital from investors who invest only on the premise that their intellectual property will be protected” would do the same if patents were suspended.
“We will not let politics stand in our way and we will continue doing what we do best,” he said.
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