Yesterday, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) issued its report on a potential expansion of the TRIPS waiver. In response, Chris Israel, executive director of the Alliance of U.S. Startups & Inventors for Jobs, released the following statement:
“The completion of the ITC’s report gives the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative the greenlight to move forward in preserving U.S. IP rights for Covid-19 diagnostics and therapeutics.
“America’s life-science inventors developed the vaccines and treatments that ended the pandemic and saved millions of lives in record time, and patients around the world already have access to an ample supply of affordable or free COVID-19 technologies. There’s simply no need to take drastic, emergency measures like sacrificing intellectual property rights at the WTO.
“Such a move would only weaken the U.S. innovation ecosystem and hinder our ability to respond to the next public health crisis.
“Now that the ITC has published its report, in the interest of U.S. inventors and startups, USTR must mobilize to uphold U.S. IP rights on the global stage.”