Combatting COVID-19

After a proposal to waive certain IP rights for Covid-19 vaccines was rejected by the TRIPSCouncil, Intellectual Property Magazine's Ben Wodecki spoke with Kirkland & Ellis’ Daniel Lim and Oxfam’s Anna Marriott on how realistic the proposal was.

“Many of the vaccines being developed are truly cutting-edge medicines, which involve a level of complexity and require a degree of expertise and experience that is a world away from the manufacture of small molecule generic versions of long-established medicines. It is important that the arguments and issues from the debate in relation to affordable access to generic medicines are not conflated with those in relation to the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic – they are distinct and different issues.