Ambassador Pimchanok Pitfield of Thailand, Chair of the Council for TRIPS, chaired the briefing session and thanked the group of USITC experts for their detailed overview of the report.
Under paragraph 8 of the Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement, members are discussing whether or not to extend the Decision to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. The USTR had asked the USITC on 16 December 2022 to launch an investigation into COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics and to provide information on market dynamics to help inform the discussion around supply and demand, price points and the relationship between testing and treating, and production and access.
In going through the almost 500 pages of material, the USITC authors explained the background to the report and the information sources used as a basis for the investigation. They also highlighted key takeaways from the report.
The USITC’s briefing provided particular detail on chapter 3 of the report, which deals with definitions surrounding COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. The authors outlined the different approaches to categorizing diagnostics and therapeutics explored in this chapter as well as the discussion of possible parameters to identify potentially relevant COVID-19 products.
USITC experts further detailed their findings on the manufacturing supply chain and trade in COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics, as explained in chapter 4 of the report, which examined the geographical distribution of manufacturers and mapped trade in these products across countries of different income level categories.
Referring to the remaining chapters, the briefing highlighted the report’s coverage of voluntary and compulsory licensing and the licensing model of the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) as well as with the assessment of demand and availability for these products, highlighting certain data gaps. The USITC further highlighted its summary of the views of interested persons who had provided input into the investigation, and the substantial literature review in chapter 8.
In the exchanges in the Q&A session, delegations broadly appreciated the thorough and robust body of material provided by the USITC’s report as a welcome contribution to the debate under paragraph 8 of the Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement.
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