The relevance of voluntary pooling and licensing of intellectual property related to COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines.
26.1.2021
Question for written answer E-000466/2021
to the Commission
Rule 138
Marc Botenga (The Left), Clare Daly (The Left), Mick Wallace (The Left), Manuel Bompard (The Left), Niyazi Kizilyürek (The Left), Pernando Barrena Arza (The Left), Petros Kokkalis (The Left), Martina Michels (The Left), Anne-Sophie Pelletier (The Left), Chris MacManus (The Left), Giorgos Georgiou (The Left), Eugenia Rodríguez Palop (The Left)
In its answer to written question E-004464/2020[1] and in the EU Action Plan on Intellectual Property, the Commission promotes voluntary pooling and licensing of intellectual property related to COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines. At the WTO, however, the Government of South Africa questioned the relevance of these provisions[2]. For voluntary licensing to have any real effect in the case of COVID-19, licences should have a global scope. Could the Commission:
- 1.Confirm that several voluntary licensing agreements concluded by European companies exclude half of the world’s population from supply, and that agreements only license a few very specific manufacturers?
- 2.Confirm that the full terms of these licences remain confidential?
- 3.Explain why these voluntary licences include geographical limitations, limiting supply to only low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), thus excluding supply to other developing countries?
- [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2020-004464-ASW_EN.html (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2020-004464-ASW_EN.html)
- [2] https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/IP/C/W674.pdf&Open=True (https://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/SS/directdoc.aspx?filename=q:/IP/C/W674.pdf&Open=True)