The pharmaceutical companies hate it. The Biden administration is embracing it. Now, finding common ground for wider distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in poorer countries falls to the World Trade Organization -- a body known more for its inability to do international deals than to clinch them.

Drug companies have a powerful ally in Germany, along with other nations, opposing a waiver of rules protecting the intellectual property behind the vaccines. When the U.S. backed that waiver, it sent shares of American and European vaccine makers tumbling on Wednesday.

At issue is an arcane 1995 WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual-property rights, known—1---. It provides enforceable rules for safeguarding trademarks, designs, inventions and other intangible goods in global trade. –1-- has re-entered the political lexicon amid a debate over how to stem the current surge in the pandemic in lesser-developed countries.

India and –2-- have proposed a broad waiver from the —1-- on the production and export of vaccines and other critical medical goods needed to combat the Covid-19 virus.

Enter the WTO's new director-general, ---3--, who officially began her tenure in Geneva just over two months ago.

While India and –2-- say  rules for vaccines create unnecessary hurdles to ending the pandemic, opponents of the waiver argue that enforceable –1-- rules are critical tools that incentivize companies to take the very kind of risks that resulted in the development and deployment of multiple Covid-19 vaccines in less than a year.

Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in against the U.S.'s support of the waiver, with a German government spokeswoman on Thursday saying it would create "severe complications" for the production of vaccines.

"The limiting factor for the production of vaccines is manufacturing capacities and high quality standards, not the patents," the German government spokeswoman said. "The protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and this has to remain so in the future."

Given the differing views in the European Union, there are likely to be negotiations, WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said. "It's such an important issue that there needs to be some form of movement," he told reporters." "Let's see if the EU comes forward with some other kind of idea. We'll have to wait and see how that goes."

Production of the vaccine has been stymied by regulatory hurdles even for manufacturers who hold IP rights -- such as a massive U.S. vaccine plant in Baltimore that was once supposed to be a backbone of vaccine production in that country for both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc, but remains mired in safety reviews.

Regardless of the merits of either argument, India and ---2--have won widespread public backing. Biden's support for the waiver also earned him a swift political victory with Democratic progressives.

Speaking Thursday, International Monetary Fund Managing Director ---4---said she sees strong economic arguments for removing barriers to vaccine production and distribution, but cautioned that a waiver on intellectual-property protections must be accompanied by a transparent process for allocating doses, and with anti counterfeiting measures.

The WTO solution acknowledges that some major developed economies will never permit the dismantling of a major WTO agreement, while at the same time encourages the private sector to deliver more jabs to people in poorer nations -- even if it means sacrificing some return on investment.