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Pharmaceutical companies and other corporations need to pay for game-changing discoveries made in nature, world leaders said this week, in order to help save the ecosystems our planet depends on.
While the idea of making corporations pay is being met with pushback from wealthy countries and the pharmaceutical industry, the public is on board with the idea: a new poll out of the UK shows that over 75% of respondents support policies that would impose a levy on companies using genetic information derived from nature.
More than 40 members of parliaments from countries around the world have signed onto a letter asking that governments take an ambitious stance on negotiations at the global nature summit taking place this week in Cali, Colombia. One of the central issues on the table at the summit, known as COP16, is how to ensure corporate giants share the financial windfall generated from genetic resources found in fragile ecosystems.
“It’s absurd that Big Pharma and other sectors relying on this genetic data have revenues of $1.5 trillion, but expect to pay nothing towards the communities that have been its guardians for millennia,” said Barry Gardiner MP, Chair of International Conservation Caucus and primary author of the letter. “These businesses have been on a free ride for too long. They must either step up or face strong new regulation.”
Digital sequence information, or DSI, is a technique used to derive genetic data from the biodiversity of plants, animals, and microorganisms found in nature. This information is often harvested from some of the planet’s most biodiverse areas, many of which are in some of the poorest countries. Genetic data is then uploaded to a database, free to use by researchers and corporations alike. Companies use the information to create new products and advancements in medicines, personal care, plant and animal breeding, and agricultural biotechnology that can rake in billions: DSI brought in an estimated $1.5 trillion for various sectors this year alone, and its value is expected to rise to to $2.3 trillion annually in 2030. The communities stewarding the ecosystems that provide the source of this information, meanwhile, often don’t see a cent in profit.
Two years ago, at COP15, governments agreed to create a preliminary sharing mechanism for a percentage of these profits as part of a wider aim to generate $200 billion yearly in new money for nature by 2030. Countries that are rich in biodiversity but lacking the finances to implement strategies to protect and restore nature are also advocating for a 1% tax on companies profiting from the use of genetic data from nature. They’re being met with resistance by nations that house some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
The letter authored by Gardiner is directed to the Prime Minister, Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer. In the letter, the 40+ MPs ask that the UK, which is co-chairing the negotiations groups in Cali, commit to putting in place a legislative framework for a levy on companies that reap profits from the genetic material from nature to secure contributions to a new global fund for nature.
Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, are also signalling their opposition to strong action from governments around this issue. Last week, the Guardian reported that UK giant AstraZeneca may cut jobs at its UK operations if the UK government enforces a global levy on companies using genetic resources from nature.
A representative from the British Pharmaceutical Industry told the Guardian that a levy would have a “direct impact on UK innovation, investment and growth”—a concept that experts say is false.
“The contention that this approach is ‘anti-growth’ is a smokescreen, a cliche, and an irresponsible narrative from acquisitive corporate interests that benefit greatly from the use of genetic resources,” said Siva Thambisetty, Assoc Prof of law at the London School of Economics, and project lead on the LSE-funded Ocean Biodiversity Collective. “It is also a tired trope to steal political will by linking fairness at the international level to loss at the national level, when many of our challenges require concerted global action.
“The decision to have users of sequence information pay is based on the idea that genetic resources are not ‘free’,” Thambisetty said. “This COP is about finding a fair way to operationalise payments without damaging innovation, while recognising that biodiversity is at the heart of any sane vision of the future of prosperity.”
Pharma giants may be working against public opinion. An online poll conducted in the UK last week surveyed 1200 people for their take on this issue. The majority of respondents—79%—backed the 1% levy on pharma companies for using genetic information derived from nature, while 74% said they think it’s unfair that companies can use genetic information without paying. An additional 66% support this financing going to Indigenous peoples and local communities, who have been the custodians of this invaluable resource for years.
The MPs who signed the letter stress that the time to act on this issue is running out.
“We’ve been going back and forth on this for over 10 years, and meanwhile the guardians of nature go uncompensated,” said Amira Saber, a member of the Egyptian parliament and secretary general of the foreign relations committee. “Fundamentally the biodiversity goals exist to not only tackle biodiversity loss, but to re-establish some equity in the way we approach biodiversity protection. We need a strong outcome on DSI or we risk trust crumbling further between those that can afford to pay, and those struggling day in day to protect ecosystems that underpin food security, health and prosperity. You can’t tell me that a company making billions in profit can’t afford to pay.”
