Canada lacks ‘political will’ to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents, Bolivian minister says

The Bolivian government is calling on Canada to exercise its power within the World Trade Organization to allow an Ontario company to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines for Bolivians.

It’s been five months since the Bolivian government called on Canada to allow COVID-19 vaccines to flow from a manufacturer in St. Catharines, Ont., to the Global South.

Now, the country, where fewer than thirty per cent of people are fully vaccinated, is repeating its request for Canada to override the patent waiver and issue a compulsory license to allow manufacturing to begin.

“It is time to make decisions in the name of humanity,” said Benjamin Blanco, Minister of Foreign Trade and Integration, Ministry of Foreign Relations for Bolivia in an interview with Global News.

In May, Bolivia signed an agreement with Biolyse Pharma, a St. Catharines-based pharmaceutical company, which is prepared to manufacture the Johnson and Johnson one-dose vaccine. The deal would ensure Bolivia received the first 15 million doses produced by Biolyse. However, the company still has not been approved to begin manufacturing by the Canadian government, leaving the Bolivian people in the lurch.

“We continue to wait,” said Blanco. “We have been waiting too long.”

Currently, the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement protects Johnson and Johnson’s patent on their vaccine and prohibits Biolyse from producing it. The TRIPS waiver, if put into effect, would allow for member states like Canada to scale-up their manufacturing of patent-protected COVID-19 vaccines. 

Biolyse has also made a formal appeal to the Canadian government to send a list of Schedule I drugs under the Patent Act to include COVID-19 vaccines under the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime, a separate entity from the TRIPS waiver. The Canadian manufacturer also approached Johnson and Johnson to help them in producing their vaccine, but were turned down.

Multiple attempts by Global News to reach Johnson and Johnson went unanswered.