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The CEO of Moderna said he "didn't lose a minute of sleep" following the US decision to back waiving intellectual-property rights for COVID-19 vaccines.
Members of the World Trade Organization are currently discussing a waiver, which if approved would leave countries free to recreate several vaccines from around the world without fear of sanctions.
President Joe Biden's administration said Wednesday it supported the move, meaning vaccines from US-based firms like Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson could be replicated.
Pharmaceutical companies usually guard their intellectual property closely, but Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said Thursday the move wouldn't affect the company's bottom line.
"I didn't lose a minute of sleep over the news during the night," Bancel said during Moderna's first-quarter earnings statement, Fierce Pharma reported.
Such a move "doesn't change anything for Moderna," he said.
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During the announcement, Bancel said that the global capacity to produce mRNA vaccines — a new type of vaccine popularized by Moderna and Pfizer in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — was at its limit anyway.
"There is no idle mRNA manufacturing capacity in the world," Bancel said. "This is a new technology."
"You cannot go hire people who know how to make mRNA. Those people don't exist," he said.
Moderna has long been open to sharing its success, announcing on October 8 that it would not enforce its patent rights "while the pandemic continues."
"We are also willing to license our intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines to others for the post-pandemic period," the company said.
Bancel said after the earnings call that it would take a long time for other companies to start up production of Moderna's vaccine, Reuters reported.
"They will have to go run a clinical trial, get the data, get the product approved and scale manufacturing. This does not happen in six or 12 or 18 months," Bancel said.
Spain on Friday said it supported the US proposal to waive the IP rights. However, other stakeholders have objected to the idea.
Germany said on Thursday that it could not support a waiver, with a government spokeswoman telling Reuters "the protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and must remain so in the future."
Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, also told Agence France-Presse on Thursday that he was "not at all" in favor of an IP waiver.
On Wednesday, Moderna's stock dipped following the US announcement, but Matthew Harrison, an equity research analyst at Morgan Stanley, said in a note published Thursday that Moderna will face little financial impact if a waiver is passed, as Insider's Carla Mozée reported Thursday.
Harrison also said the WTO doesn't have a way to to force Moderna to teach others how to make its vaccine, per Markets Insider.
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See Also:
- Biden's move to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents fulfills a 2020 campaign promise to Ady Barkan, a famed activist with the degenerative disease ALS
- We just got our first evidence that Moderna's coronavirus booster shot works to fight variants
- One slide lays out Pfizer's busy 2021 plans for its COVID-19 vaccine, including when it could start being used in kids
