“The real bottlenecks to equitable access for developing countries are manufacturing capacity, supply chain volatility - including access to raw materials - distribution and rollout logistics. An IP waiver would likely have unintended consequences and could act to disincentivise companies from investing in research and development,” Dr Nash said.

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Global development organisations say serious measures must be taken in this and future pandemics to give all countries freedom to move quickly during pandemics to make their own medicines.

“The proposed TRIPS waiver would provide countries with an effective and expeditious way to remove key IP barriers in advance, rather than wait for barriers to hit and then scramble into action,” Doctors Without Borders argued earlier this year.

The Biden Administration has also taken measures to source and donate vaccine doses to poorer nations, securing an agreement with Pfizer and BioNTech this week to purchase 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine at a not-for-profit price for the United States to donate to low-and-middle income countries.