The Biden administration will soon make a decision with huge implications for California’s biotech industry — and the patients who depend on it to produce cures for life-threatening diseases.
The White House could weigh in on a proposal at the World Trade Organization that would waive international patent protections for COVID diagnostics and therapeutics. The proposal — far from being a noble humanitarian gesture, as proponents claim — would ship innumerable American jobs to our competitors and rivals like China while delivering no benefits for global health.
At UC San Diego, 24 COVID clinical trials are still underway. Researchers in those trials are studying the safety and efficacy of new treatments, and seven trials are still open to new participants. UCSD’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine is also using new forms of RNA technology to create precision medicines for cancer, heart disease, genetic conditions, and central nervous system disorders. And the SC Liver Research Consortium, whose president lives in La Jolla, is currently studying different liver diseases via six separate trials.
As a patient advocate at the Liver Coalition of San Diego, I know our city’s researchers also play a critical role in developing treatments for liver cancer, fatty liver disease, and cirrhosis. Four members of UCSD’s gastroenterology faculty are among the top 1% most cited researchers in the world, and local biotech companies like Intercept Pharmaceuticals are at the forefront of developing cutting-edge therapies for rare liver conditions.
Research like this explains why the San Diego area alone supports more than 2,000 life sciences companies and, directly and indirectly, 178,000 jobs. And nearly 4,000 biotech firms and institutes in the Los Angeles area support more than 200,000 jobs.
The Biden administration agreed last year to the WTO’s request for a patent waiver on COVID vaccines, but punted a decision on tests and treatments until U.S. officials could study the issue more closely. The U.S. International Trade Commission later issued that long-awaited report, which found no evidence that waiving intellectual property protections would improve access to treatments.
This month, WTO members announced a lack of consensus on extending the waiver to tests and treatments.
The Biden administration still has time to make clear that the waiver is unnecessary — and would be a grave mistake. IP is the cornerstone of innovation in the U.S. economy. Laws that protect IP give companies a chance to recoup their enormous investments. Lifesaving drugs simply wouldn’t be developed if private investors weren’t willing to take big risks funding the development of innovative treatments.
While government funding for basic scientific research is certainly helpful, private companies fund the lion’s share of drug development.
Consider one study that examined 18 therapies that initially received government funding and eventually won FDA approval. The total NIH funding for all 18 FDA-approved therapies was only $670 million, while a whopping $44.3 billion in private funding — excluding post-approval funding — was spent to get the treatments across the finish line. Policies that undermine private investments in drug development would kneecap our ability to develop lifesaving treatments, ultimately hurting patients the most.
Take hepatitis C, which was first identified by California scientists in 1989. After decades of further research, U.S. biotech companies — including Gilead, which is based in the Golden State — have managed to develop cures with the potential to eliminate the disease.
Without IP protections that spur enormous private sector investment, these treatments wouldn’t exist. Investors would flock to different sectors and countries. Biotech jobs would also leave the United States, and drug innovation would lose momentum.
China has already designated biotech a key strategic industry, with the goal of surpassing the United States as global leader. Many treatments and diagnostics developed for COVID also have clinical applications well beyond the pandemic. Why should we give such breakthrough discoveries away to our leading rival?
A waiver expansion would accomplish none of its stated goals. For California — and for the United States more broadly — it would be a self-inflicted wound and a gift to rivals like China.
Scott Suckow is the executive director of the Liver Coalition of San Diego.
