Watchdog Slams White House Vaccine Plan

Contact: MacKenzie A. Morales | 615/512-3936

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) strongly condemned the White House for proposing to force drug companies to relinquish their intellectual property (IP) on vaccines.  On Friday, March 26, CNBC reported that, “The White House is weighing whether to suspend intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments…”

In response, TPA President David Williams offered the following comment:

“This misguided proposal would set a terrible precedent, diminishing incentives to innovate for decades to come.  Strong IP rules have been instrumental in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year after the onslaught of the deadly pandemic.  Millions of lives will be saved because of the rapid development and distribution of vaccines that were tested and produced more quickly than anyone could have imagined. Since the start of the pandemic, thousands of companies have worked around the clock to ensure that Americans have access to cutting-edge healthcare products. Chief among these businesses have been pharmaceutical companies producing the groundbreaking research for vaccines to finally eliminate the coronavirus. These enormous investments would simply not be possible without the strong IP protections enshrined in the US Constitution.”

Williams continued: “Nearly all the companies involved in  vaccine research and production  are located in the United States (U.S.) and the United Kingdom (U.K.), two nations known for their robust IP protection.  It is no small coincidence that the U.S. and U.K. have taken an outsized role in beating back the pandemic and are ranked as the top two nations globally in terms of the strength of their IP protections. Weakening these pivotal predictions would make future innovation considerably more difficult, and heighten the risk of a new, unchecked pandemic down the road.”

Williams concluded: “In order to be prepared for the next pandemic and encourage innovation across the board, the Biden administration must reject the idea of forcing companies to give away their IP protections.”

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Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.