Good Day BIO: House leaders speak out on IP waiver expansion

More congressional leaders are speaking out against expanding the waiver of IP protections for COVID technology. Plus, USAID’s Samantha Power visited BIO member Corteva and spoke about the need for innovation to “break the cycle” of food crises. (621 words, 3 minutes, 6 seconds)

House leaders speak out on IP waiver expansion

Echoing a bipartisan Senate letter last week, two top House trade leaders are raising serious concerns about the proposed expansion of the WTO’s COVID IP waiver.

The news: Ranking members of the House Ways & Means Committee and Trade Subcommittee, Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Adrian Smith (R-NE), warned the Biden administration that waiving IP protections for COVID-19 technologies sets “a dangerous precedent that could have a chilling effect on future innovative vaccines and therapies.”

To catch you up: In June, the WTO agreed to waive IP protections in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 vaccines, a decision supported by the Biden administration. The WTO is now considering expanding the waiver to include COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics.

What they said: “This decision undermines American innovation and exposes American firms to those who have been trying to steal U.S. vaccine research,” they wrote in a letter.

BIO’s been saying this for a long time—read more here.

There’s bipartisan agreement. Last week, eight bipartisan Senators sent a similar letter to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), urging the administration to protect American innovation.

The next steps: The Biden administration has not yet decided whether to support the expanded waiver. It’s critical to remind them of the bipartisan concern and to protect American innovation.

More Health Care News: 

VOA: World Polio Day: Pakistan’s polio problem persists
“In Pakistan, despite frequent anti-polio drives, more than 400,000 children are missed every year.”

USAID’s Samantha Power calls for biotech to ‘break the cycle’ of food crises

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power visited Iowa last week, where she spoke about innovation and food security at the World Food Prize event and visited Corteva, a BIO member producing innovative seeds the world needs.

How do we “break the cycle of lurching from food crisis to food crisis?”she asked in her World Food Prize keynote. “It starts with changing what we grow, how we grow it, and who benefits.”

Why it matters: “Each night, as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry. Forty million people face emergency levels of hunger, that means that such households have already seen family members die due to lack of food,” she continued.

The next steps: Power announced new USAID initiatives to boost food production and productivity, including funding to accelerate seed breeding technologies, like using CRISPR to “tailor” seeds to “local soils, salinity, and climate” in partner countries.

While in Iowa, she visited BIO member Corteva, which is “constantly innovating to think through how can we make seeds more drought resistant, heat resistant, even wind resistant, pest resistant,” she said in a video posted on Twitter. She got a look at the full cycle of seed development and the company’s drought-resistant corn.

The bottom line: “If we can get these seeds out to developing countries, in places that are hospitable to the very specific seeds that are made, that can make a world of difference in terms of agricultural productivity,” she said.

Who won the 2022 World Food Prize? Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, for her research on how climate change affects our food systems—read more on Bio.News.

More Agriculture and Environment News: 

Bloomberg: This Barbie used to be trash
“Mattel offers 33 toys it labels sustainable, up from four in 2020. The company has pledged that by the end of the decade, its entire product line will be made from ‘100% recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastic materials.’”

President Biden’s Monday: Giving remarks at the DNC HQ at 1 PM ET, then hosting a reception for Diwali at the White House this evening.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: Recess. On Thursday, Center Forward will hold a virtual congressional briefing on antimicrobial resistance and pandemic preparedness, featuring BIO’s Emily Wheeler—register here.