Waive Pharma’s Vaccine Rights? What That Would Mean: QuickTake

A proposal at the World Trade Organization to lift intellectual property protections for makers of Covid-19 vaccines got an unexpected boost when the U.S. announced May 5 that it supported the idea. It was a dramatic change of long-standing policy by the U.S., home to some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Supporters of the waiver say it will speed production of vaccines and help poor nations left behind in the global vaccination effort catch up. Vaccine makers and other critics of the waiver say it undermines the incentives that led to the rapid development of the vaccines and won’t ...