Good Day BIO: China pushes WTO IP waiver

We have an update on the proposed waiver of COVID vaccine IP and China’s proposed amendments in an exclusive deep dive featuring comments from BIO’s Chief Advocacy Officer. Plus, researchers have discovered how to use CRISPR to develop a tomato rich in vitamin D. (672 words, 3 minutes, 21 seconds)

BIO Exclusive: China pushes WTO IP waiver to gain tech access

With trade ministers meeting in Davos this week, the proposed waiver of COVID-19 vaccine intellectual property protections is getting renewed attention—but amendments would give China access to biotech and hurt the U.S. biotech industry, BIO’s Chief Advocacy Officer Nick Shipley told Bio.News.

ICYMI: On May 10, China proposed amendments to the draft waiver of the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, saying the waiver must be open to all developing countries. China is considered a developing country, though China pledged to “not avail itself of the flexibilities,” according to the WTO.

“If you waive IP, then China’s going to be able to get it. They can buy it from another country,” BIO’s Nick Shipley told Bio.News. China is following a 10-year plan that “includes a big section on how they’re going to become the number-one players in biotech.”

“In just about every other context, the U.S. government recognizes that China has a pretty ‘difficult’ respect for intellectual property,”including in the most recent Special 301 Report, continued Shipley.  “It just strikes me as so weird that they go in such a different direction so aggressively with this industry.”

But we don’t need an IP waiver at all: “Now we are at a point where we have met and surpassed a critical mass on vaccine production,” he said. “There are just so many countries that have vaccines that they’re either sending back to manufacturers or they're saying this is going to waste. They can’t use it, because they don’t have the distribution capacity, or they just can’t get utilization because of all the misinformation and vaccine skepticism."

What the waiver would do is give China access to hot biotechnology: “The mRNA technology is a real seismic leap, there’s just no other way to put it,” said Shipley. “That’s why everyone wants it.” 

The next steps: The proposal is expected to be discussed during the WTO’s 12th Ministerial, June 12-15 in Geneva. USTR’s position on China’s proposal is unclear—and as the U.S. is working to reengage Indo-Pacific trade discussions, partners around the world will be watching the WTO negotiations closely.

Read the whole thing.

More Health Care News: 

WHO: World Health Assembly re-elects Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to second term as WHO Director-General
“Dr. Tedros’s new mandate officially commences on 16 August 2022. A Director-General can be re-appointed once, in accordance with World Health Assembly rules and procedures.”

Here comes the sun – in our tomatoes

We talk a lot about gene editing plants to help them withstand climate change and grow more sustainably—and new research shows we can use CRISPR to make the already magnificent tomato a new source of vitamin D.

The news: Scientists used CRISPR-Cas9 to develop a tomato that’s a source of vitamin D, according to research published this week in Nature Plants.

The specifics: Tomatoes produce provitamin D3, which is a precursor to vitamin D—but an enzyme in the tomato converts it to cholesterol. By editing “a very small fragment of a part of this gene,” scientists turned off production of the enzyme, head researcher Jie Li explained to New Scientist.

The result: A tomato with the same amount of vitamin D as “two medium-sized eggs or 28g of tuna,” says the study—with no “effect on growth, development, or yield,” said Li. “It just looked like a normal tomato fruit.”

This change could have occurred with traditional breeding techniques—but “would have taken 10 years to achieve the same result,” added researcher Cathie Martin.   

Why it matters: “Approximately one billion people worldwide suffer from vitamin D insufficiency,” say the study authors, which is “associated with increased risk of micronutrient deficiencies, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, depression, neurocognitive decline, dementia, and the severity of coronavirus.”

President Biden’s Wednesday: Signing an Executive Order at 4 PM ET “to advance effective, accountable policing and strengthen public safety.” Worth reading: POLITICO West Wing Playbook tells the interesting story of how the White House got the Ukraine aid bill all the way to South Korea for Biden to sign. 

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: ICYMI, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis held a hearing yesterday on food supply chains—watch the hearing and read about BIO’s comments submitted for the record.