IP protections are key to innovation and pandemic readiness.

Innovation does not fall out of the sky. It is the product of intense networks of cooperation that bring together scientists and researchers, small and large companies, workforce training organizations and manufacturing centers, as well as marketing and distribution systems. Secure intellectual property ensures the cohesiveness of this system. Patents secure, to inventors, the exclusive rights to their inventions, making it possible for them to collaborate effectively in the knowledge that their invention will not be stolen. Strong intellectual property systems also incentivize entrepreneurs to bring new goods and services to the marketplace based on those inventions by using the time-limited exclusive rights to earn a sufficient return on their investment. 

Giving away intellectual property and waiving royalties—as the Pandemic Agreement proposes—breaks the very fabric of the innovation system. This is the same innovation system that the world will rely on to produce timely countermeasures for the next pandemic or health emergency. 

In any event, it is not clear that the proposed remedy is based on an accurate diagnosis of the problem. Indeed, a key lesson from the recent COVID-19 pandemic is that while the innovation system worked in producing countermeasures in record time, a major problem lay in the fact that the physical infrastructure needed to move the vaccines and other supplies to poor and remote areas was inadequate. Worryingly, many low and middle-income nations  the necessary facilities to research and manufacture countermeasures, adequate transportation systems and storage locations, and enough trained healthcare professionals to perform a large-scale testing and vaccination program.