Enabling Innovation Policies
Innovation ecosystems are complex. They involve many actors, which must be motivated to invest in risky new ventures with no guarantee of success. They rest on a foundation of enabling policies in areas including intellectual property, trade, investment, rule of law, and education. A productive innovation ecosystem provides legal certainty and predictability for innovators. IP protection and enforcement frameworks are important in this regard. Patent rules should be business-model neutral and aimed at supporting innovation over the long-term. Trade secret protection, which can help innovators to manage valuable, confidential information, is particularly relevant for SMEs and individual inventors. Rules that enable public and private sector entities to share knowledge and jointly commercialize R&D can ensure that breakthroughs don’t sit on the shelf. Through Innovation Council, members weigh in on the range of policies that can advance innovation across sectors and regions.
South African Company nears License to sell J. & J. Covid Shot across Africa
The South African drug maker Aspen Pharmacare announced on Tuesday that it was finalizing the first agreement to control production of a Covid-19 vaccine in Africa. The deal, with Johnson & Johnson, would allow Aspen to bottle and market the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across Africa under the brand name Aspenovax.
Aspen would then have the right to determine to whom the vaccine will be sold, in what quantities and at what price. This agreement stops short of giving Aspen rights to produce the drug substance — that is, the actual contents of the vaccine. Instead, Johnson & Johnson will direct other facilities to make the ingredients to send to Aspen for the company to blend into vaccine doses.
APAC 2021: Technology & Innovation event
Two-day event on October 19–20, 2021, will help top business and technology leaders in the region embrace creativity as a competitive advantage to drive growth. Technology & Innovation APAC will explore how businesses, armed with the right strategy and people, can leverage platforms, practices, and partners to unlock creativity within their organisations to enhance customer and employee experiences.
Waiving IP Rights: The Wrong Path to the Right Goals
Daniel J. Staudt, current President of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), explains in this article that waiving intellectual property (IP) protections for COVID-19 vaccines will hinder—rather than further—three meritorious objectives of the current U.S. Presidential Administration: ending the pandemic as soon as possible, levelling the IP playing field with China, and pursuing a worker-centric trade policy. In addition, a full and frank discussion of the real challenges at hand must take place, in order to support the continued efforts of vaccine manufacturers to identify—and engage with—new potential partners with whom they can create more manufacturing capacity. Only through such discussions can the challenges of globally distributing high-quality vaccines be truly addressed.
Trade restrictions are delaying the COVID response. The WTO must act
Together with Thaddeus Burns, Innovation Council member Merck LF, Jennifer Brant has co-authored a paper on the delay in the COVID response caused by trade restrictions and explains why the WTO must act. The human costs of the pandemic, already dire, continue to mount. Vaccines against COVID have been developed at an unprecedented pace through a series of unprecedented partnerships. But this is not the end of the story; there is still an urgent need to expand vaccine protection worldwide, including through the expansion of biologic drug production capacity.
Q&A with Innovation Council members Wetility & Renewables in Africa
Innovation Council sat down with Vincent Maposa, the Founder and CEO of Wetility and Tony Tiyou, the Founder and CEO of Renewables in Africa, to talk about the beginnings of their companies and what made them successful.
Wetility is a rooftop solar PV technology company based in South Africa. It creates optimal capacity for stand-alone and sectional title homes and small commercial buildings. The company harnesses the power of the sun, with the aim of introducing the world to a hybrid solution that works seamlessly and in harmony with current power supply options.
Renewables in Africa is a clean energy engineering consultancy providing services in renewable energy and energy management to project developers and investors. RiA is primarily focused on projects in Africa, but it does advise clients about energy projects in other emerging markets as well. RiA is also a media platform with the vision to transform Africa and African lives by leveraging the power of renewable energy.
Wetility and Renewables in Africa work closely together.
Panelists Discuss Why Patent Waiver Would Not Accelerate Global Vaccine Distribution
At a panel held in June by The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA), two vaccine scientists, Professor Robin Shattock (Imperial College, London) and Dr. Anne Moore (University College Cork) discussed their thoughts on why a patent waiver related to COVID-19 vaccines would not speed up vaccine distribution in lower income countries.
Read the full story.
HS codes relevant to inputs for COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics
Bio-pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing inputs include: chemical or biological reagents; equipment used in laboratories; microscope parts; equipment for manufacturing such as single-use bioreactors; and the full range of raw materials used for R&D and production of vaccines and other bio-pharmaceuticals, such as guanidine thiocyanate. Researchers use these tools to make scientific breakthroughs, and bio-pharmaceutical companies rely on them to discover, develop, validate, and manufacture lifesaving vaccines, drugs, and therapies – including those necessary to address COVID-19 and future global health crises.
Some countries impose tariffs on bio-pharmaceutical inputs, in some cases as high as 25%. This raises costs and makes it more difficult for fledgling producers to compete. Eliminating tariffs on bio-pharmaceutical inputs could help to resolve some of the current global distribution challenges for COVID-related products, thereby helping to make the global COVID-19 response more equitable, affordable, and sustainable.
Unilateral elimination of COVID-19 related tariffs would provide substantial benefits in terms of the short-term dissemination of pharmaceutical inputs and vaccines. Ultimately, however, tariff elimination should be made permanent and should cover a broader range of products. This would create legal certainty and predictability for actors along global value chains.
An appropriate vehicle for tariff elimination on inputs could be the WTO plurilateral agreement known as Zero for Zero, for which product coverage should be expanded to include the full range of COVID-19 bio-pharmaceutical inputs. In this respect, Innovation Council has developed a list of HS codes showing tariffs related to the inputs used for developing and producing COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The list was developed in partnership with private sector actors in these value chains. A list of COVID-19 MFN product examples is available here.
The Big Secret Behind the Proposed TRIPS Waiver
James Pooley, former Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), describes in this article how TRIPS only creates obligations for governments to pass laws supporting intellectual property rights of certain kinds: patents, copyrights, designs, trademarks, and trade secrets. Importantly, it doesn’t affect the private ownership of those rights. This is an important distinction, especially for trade secrets (or “undisclosed information” as they are called in TRIPS), because, unlike the other “registered” rights, they don’t depend for their existence on government certification. Rather, trade secrets only require a legal system that enforces confidentiality. Furthermore, although patents usually steal the limelight in conversations about “technology transfer,” the truth is that they are only a part of most technology transfer stories. After all, in order to actually build the factory and produce the goods, you need to know more than what’s in the patents.
25 inspiring stories of Latin American women
Given the importance of science and technology for advancing the SDGs – but against a backdrop of declining interest in scientific careers among youth, and a persistent gender gap in the STEM field – 3M has published the stories of 25 successful women in science in Latin America. The stories, curated from more than 1000 applications, are inspiring individual tales. They also highlight the broader positive impact these women have had on their societies. Kudos to 3M for shining a spotlight on the achievements of these impressive scientists.