From the article:
The logic of the argument seems clear and intuitive — at first. Without patents, which serve narrow commercial interests, companies all over the world could freely produce the vaccine. Sure, Big Pharma would lose money — but this is a pandemic, and human life comes before private profit, especially when vaccines receive substantial public financing to support research and development. As with HIV drugs in years past, widespread generic production would dramatically increase supply and drive down prices to levels affordable even in the developing world.
Reality is more complicated, however. Because of the technical complexity of manufacturing coronavirus vaccines, waiving intellectual-property rights, by itself, would have little effect. It could even backfire, with companies using the move as an excuse to disengage from global access efforts. There are more effective ways to entice — and to pressure — companies to license and share their intellectual property and the associated know-how, without broadly nullifying patents.
