Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Holds a press conference outside of the Capitol on Tuesday, April 27, 2021 to reinstate the Universal Childcare and Early Education Act.
Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren urges the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company to lobby against a proposal to give up intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines in order to boost vaccine production for poorer nations.
Warren and other lawmakers in a letter sent Wednesday asked how much money the trading group and its member companies have spent this year opposing the waiver that would remove barriers to vaccine production in developing countries. against Congressional and White House officials to engage PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl received from CNBC.
The Biden government said in early May that it would support a waiver of the World Trade Organization’s trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) agreement. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, whose members include Covid vaccine makers AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, are trying to block the waiver.
Removing patent protection for Covid vaccines would allow other pharmaceutical companies to manufacture the life-saving syringes. Drug makers fear they could set a precedent for future products and end their lucrative monopoly on selling their new drugs.
Warren also asked the trading group about their attempts to block a House Democratic bill that would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with manufacturers for lower drug prices.
“PhRMA and other drug companies have urged the Biden administration to oppose the TRIPS waiver, arguing that it would” undermine the global response to the pandemic, “wrote Warren and other lawmakers,” leading to fewer new cures and. ” Treatments lead, “and it defied Medicare Part D price negotiations, the letter said.
“While the pharmaceutical industry has recognized the development of new COVID vaccines – which were developed with massive infusions of federal funds – it has not withdrawn its efforts to block drug price proposals and maintain the status quo,” lawmakers added.
The legislature gave the retail group a deadline of June 30 to comment. PhRMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Warren’s letter comes as global groups, including the World Health Organization, are calling on wealthy countries and drug manufacturers to bring Covid vaccinations to low- and lower-middle-income countries, some of which are seeing increasingly worrying spikes in new infections.
Ken Frazier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Merck & Co., from left, Stephen Ubl, Chief Executive Officer of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and Robert Hugin, Chairman of Celgene Corp., arrive for a press conference outside the White House after meeting US President Donald Trump (not pictured) in Washington, DC, the United States, on Tuesday, January 31, 2017.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Many countries and drug manufacturers have committed to distributing millions of doses around the world. President Joe Biden announced last week that his government would donate 500 million Pfizer vaccine doses to other nations.
The pharmaceutical industry has previously said that not using TRIPS would “undermine our global response to the pandemic,” compromise security, weaken supply chains and create confusion between public and private partners.
In the first three months of this year, drug companies spent a record $ 92 million on lobbying, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan campaign finance research group in Washington. PhRMA spent $ 8.6 million on lobbying this year after spending $ 25.9 million in 2020.
