Waivers cook Montana.

Unfortunately, the work of pioneering medical researchers in Montana and across the nation is under threat, thanks to a controversial measure proposed by certain countries at the World Trade Organization.

The World Trade Organization's member nations — including the United States — could decide to waive patent protections for Covid-19 tests and therapeutics. While the WTO refrained from greenlighting this proposal at its most recent annual meeting, the Biden administration has yet to publicly condemn the waiver — meaning the issue could still arise in the future.

That would make U.S. medical discoveries available to rivals like China — and deter billions of dollars of investment in medical research. The consequences for Montana's economy would be severe.

Medical breakthroughs don't come quickly, easily, or cheaply. It takes years of research and upwards of $2 billion per drug, to discover, test, and manufacture novel treatments. Only about 12% of experimental medicines that enter clinical trials go on to win FDA approval.

Government and philanthropic groups help fund basic research — much of it performed at academic institutions like the University of Montana. But private companies are the ones that then invest billions of dollars turning promising discoveries in the lab into tangible, extensively tested drugs that meet the FDA's high safety standards.

This process simply couldn't happen without intellectual property protections. Patents allow biotech firms and their investors to earn a return on successful products for a set period of time. Revenue from just a few life-saving discoveries can outweigh the losses from countless failures. But arbitrarily stripping patent protections from breakthrough treatments would completely upend this delicate investment calculus.

If the WTO eventually decides to throw global IP rights into turmoil, many investors will no longer be able to justify the massive risks involved in drug development. As a result, cutting-edge research — like a Montana State research team's efforts to defeat cancer with artificial intelligence — could be endangered.

Waiving patent rights would imperil many of the good jobs the life sciences industry supports, including thousands here in Montana. Merck, Pfizer, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals are just some of the firms with workers here in Big Sky Country.