Why should Covid19 vaccines be exempted from IPRs? with Dr Arjun Jayadev Chayakkada Chats

There is a major debate over intellectual property rights and life-saving medicines, particularly Covid19 vaccines. One year has passed since the pandemic broke out. On the one hand, we have only a handful of vaccines. On the other hand, more than 80% of the world’s vaccines have gone to people in high-income countries, and just 0.3% to people in low-income countries. A major campaign for a "people's vaccine" is now ongoing, which asks for exemption of COVID-19 vaccines from IP protections. They say that removing IPRs would incentivise new producers and help address disparities in vaccine access. But proponents of IPRs argue that it would only disincentivise new producers and investors, which will adversely affect the prospects of vaccine development in the long-run.

To understand this debate better, we are today joined by Dr Arjun Jayadev, who is a Professor of Economics at the School of Arts and Sciences at Azim Premji University in Bangalore, India. He was previously Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also closely involved with the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

I speak to him about the basic links between IPRs and the pandemic; the long-held orthodoxy in economic theory on the importance of IPRs, especially in areas like health; how IPRs lead to suboptimalities like hoarding of knowledge, vaccine grabs and other global inequalities; the relationship between public funding and vaccine production; whether private profits being produced from public investments; and finally, the problem of vaccine nationalism.