German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday rejected calls for pharma companies to drop patent protections for coronavirus vaccines, saying this would not end supply shortages
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th May, 2021) German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday rejected calls for pharma companies to drop patent protections for coronavirus vaccines, saying this would not end supply shortages.
"I do not think that waiving patents is the solution to make vaccines available to more people," she told a virtual news conference, following an informal EU summit in Portugal.
The politician said intellectual rights protections were integral to pharma companies' creativity and their power of innovation and guaranteed the quality of "highly sensitive" products, such as vaccines.
Merkel thus echoed other EU leaders who said patent waivers were not the way out. The idea was floated by the US administration. President Joe Biden on Wednesday backed a freeze on patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines.
