{"id":25782,"date":"2021-02-22T13:00:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T18:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=25782"},"modified":"2021-02-22T13:33:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T18:33:43","slug":"united-nations-pressure-u-s-to-surrender-critical-patent-protections-some-leftist-politicians-now-pushing-biden-to-surrender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/25782\/united-nations-pressure-u-s-to-surrender-critical-patent-protections-some-leftist-politicians-now-pushing-biden-to-surrender\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Admin. Must Resist Pressure by Congressional Leftists and Global Chorus to Surrender U.S. Pharmaceutical Patent Protections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strong patent protections provide the foundation for U.S. pharmaceutical innovation, which leads the world and accounts for an astounding two-thirds of all new drugs<\/a> introduced worldwide.\u00a0 In the words of former patent attorney Abraham Lincoln<\/a>, patent rights also “added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius” explaining why America led the way<\/a> in developing coronavirus vaccines with breathtaking speed.<\/p>\n

Reconfirming the adage that no good deed goes unpunished, however, an array of internationalist voices like the World Trade Organization (WTO), India and South Africa now demand<\/a> that the U.S. surrender those vital patent and other intellectual property (IP) protections for coronavirus vaccines, diagnostics and other treatments.\u00a0 Worse, leftist politicians here in America like Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky<\/a> (D – Illinois) now ask the Biden Administration to bow to those potentially destructive demands<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That would tragically and needlessly undermine the very policies that prompted pharmaceutical innovators to devise and develop the vaccines already providing relief to the world, and leave us less capable of addressing current and future diseases and pandemics.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Biden himself has historically supported patent and other IP rights, including sponsorship of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act<\/a> that proved so invaluable in promoting innovation, and which The Economist<\/em> magazine labeled<\/a> “possibly the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America over the past half-century.”\u00a0 Biden also visited a Pfizer vaccine plant in Michigan<\/a> just last week, praising its pioneering work that may save millions of lives, suggesting that he at least understands the high stakes.\u00a0 Additionally, U.S. opposition to the WTO proposal is joined by the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and Japan.<\/p>\n

But the bad news is that Rep. Schakowsky’s effort appears to have convinced<\/a> Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – California) and Congressional Democrats, who will in turn pressure the Biden Administration to cave.<\/p>\n

This assault against U.S. drug innovators and patent protections is unnecessary, as they already plan to offer their treatments<\/a> to poor nations across the world, and to license their patent rights at abnormally low prices or even free of charge.\u00a0\u00a0 But on a broader level, the Biden Administration must consider the dangerous signal that suspending patent rights for pharmaceutical innovators would send, and the long-term disincentives that would follow if pharmaceutical patent rights were weakened rather than protected.\u00a0 Pharmaceutical innovation demands billions of dollars in sunk costs of investment, not to mention potential product liability lawsuits for any error.\u00a0 To suddenly signal that those costs and risks won\u2019t be sufficiently and fairly rewarded through ensuing patent protections would have catastrophic effects over both the short and long terms.\u00a0 Drug costs remain a fair concern.\u00a0 But how would it be a preferable alternative if the new drugs were never created at all due to lack of patent protection incentives?\u00a0 That\u2019s precisely why the nations supporting the WTO proposal don\u2019t produce the lifesaving drugs that U.S. innovators constantly create, and that would be the reality if we opted for public policies that deprived those innovators and investors of the incentives to create drugs that save millions and even billions of lives.<\/p>\n

American patent protections are the leading reason why we continue to produce the overwhelming share of new drugs worldwide, including the new coronavirus vaccines.\u00a0 Hopefully, the Biden Administration keeps that reality in mind as it stands up against Congressional leftists like Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Schakowsky and rejects this potentially catastrophic WTO proposal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strong patent protections provide the foundation for U.S. pharmaceutical innovation, which leads the world and accounts for an astounding two-thirds of all new drugs introduced worldwide.\u00a0 In the words of former patent attorney Abraham Lincoln, patent rights also “added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius” explaining why America led the way in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25782"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25791,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25782\/revisions\/25791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}