South Korea asks US for access to vaccine IP

South Korean officials have urged the US government to help Korean companies gain access to IP related to producing COVID-19 jabs.

The country has asked the Biden administration to provide access to crucial IP rights after failed attempts to negotiate with US companies, reported the Financial Times.

While Korean companies have struck deals with AstraZeneca, Novavax and Sputnik to manufacture vaccines locally deals with US pharma companies Pfizer and Moderna have yet to come to fruition, despite the two countries signing a vaccine partnership agreement in May.

Speaking to the Financial Times, an unnamed senior official in Seoul said: “We have asked Washington to transfer technology for vaccine production, but US officials said it is something that should be decided in the private sector”.

To waive or not?

Pressure has been increasing on pharma giants and governments to waive IP rights for COVID-19 related treatments as many lower and middle-income countries fall behind on vaccination efforts.

While private initiatives such as the vaccine tech sharing platform C-TAP or the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme exist to donate resources to these countries, it has not been enough to curb infection rates.

In recent months, more governments, former world leaders and charities have come out in support of the COVID-19 IP waiver currently pending before the World Trade Organisation in the hopes to increase vaccination efforts.

But many in the IP space fear that, if implemented, the waiver would set a dangerous precedent.

“It is a radical, never before seen waiver,” said former director of the US Patent and Trademark Office Andrei Iancu, in the LSPN Connect webinar “IP Rights During a Pandemic”.

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