Dr Luke McDonagh was recently quoted by the Independent on the ongoing WTO negotiations over a waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments under the TRIPS Agreement. At present WTO negotiations are stalled due to opposition by the EU and UK.
The Independent reported:
London School of Economics IP expert Dr Luke McDonagh was a driving force behind a letter signed by 120 academics from around the world earlier this year urging the UK government, along with Australia, Brazil, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and the EU, to drop their opposition to the waiver.He told the Independent: “All of the big industrialised countries have five or six times the supplies they need on order. The World Health Organisation has said that health care workers around the world should be prioritised, and yet we have unvaccinated doctors in countries like Uganda dying while Pfizer say they want to supply third doses to the US.“The pharmaceutical companies say that they will have produced the 11 billion doses needed to protect the world by the end of the year, but that still doesn’t mean that the developing world will have enough to protect its population.”Dr McDonagh said that, while the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was being produced on a not-for-profit basis, it appeared the UK was resisting the IP waiver in order to avoid the danger of British companies missing out on potential profits on booster jabs expected to be delivered annually for years into the future.
Read the Independent article in full
Academic Open letter co-organised by Dr Siva Thambisetty, Dr Hyo Yoon Kang, Dr Aisling McMahon, Dr Luke McDonagh and Dr Graham Dutfield.