August 27, 2020: Initial commitments by university-based vaccine developers and the World Health Organisation to provide COVID-19 vaccines to all manufacturers without paying high monopoly prices have been overwhelmed by the pharmaceutical industry’s absolute commitment to intellectual property rights, according to a report in Fortune Magazine.
August 18, 2020: The Guardian (UK) has reported a series of law firms advising clients to use Investor-State Dispute Settlement clauses in trade and investment agreements to “recover or prevent loss resulting from COVID-19-related government actions”.
August 14, 2020: A short but growing list of countries are now signing pre-order contracts with pharmaceutical manufacturers for possible COVID-19 vaccines, which could leave behind most of the world’s population in 2021.
Explainer
Vaccines and WTO trade rules (TRIPS)
July 17, 2020: Finance Ministers of the world's richest countries are meeting at the G20 on July 19 to discuss how to respond to the #Covid19 pandemic. Sixty-four countries spend more on debt repayments than healthcare.
The Covid-19 crisis could mean 500 million more people are pushed into poverty. In 2020 the group of 76 poorest countries are due to spend:
July 15, 2020: In an overwhelming vote on July 10, 2020, the European Parliament supported a World Health Organization initiative to create the Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), which would collect patent rights, regulatory test data, and other information that could be shared for developing drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics to combat Covid-19 and ensure they are accessible to all..
July 9, 2020: US pharmaceutical giant Gilead has filed five patent applications for a 20-year monopoly on the manufacture and commercialisation of the drug remdesivir in Argentina. Remdesivir is the first drug approved globally to treat people infected with COVID-19. If the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) rejects the patent, it would be a significant step toward Argentina being able to manufacture remdesivir locally at a reduced price.
You can view here the video of the AFTINET webinar: The pandemic is exposing flaws in global trade policy: what should post-pandemic trade policy look like?
July 1, 2020: AFTINET's submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is here.
June 25, 2020, Media Release: “An open letter endorsed by 630 international and national civil society organisations has been sent to Trade Minister Birmingham, warning him that Australia could face a wave of cases from global corporations claiming millions in compensation for actions taken to respond to the pandemic. Corporations can do this using rules in trade deals known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS,” AFTINET Convener Dr Patricia Ranald said today.