Shunning Biden’s IP waiver, G20 supports voluntary licensing of COVID-19 vaccines

The G20 has endorsed voluntary measures to transfer IP to enhance access to COVID-19 countermeasures at a global health summit. In a snub to the Biden administration, which has endorsed a WTO IP waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, a consensus declaration from the G20 Global Health Summit did not mention the waiver or any other proposals to abrogate the IP rights of biopharmaceutical companies.

The Rome Declaration committed the G20 to “promoting the use of tools such as voluntary licensing agreements of intellectual property, voluntary technology and know-how transfers, and patent pooling on mutually-agreed terms.” ...