The Biden administration on Wednesday came out in support of waiving intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines, a breakthrough for international efforts to suspend patent rules as the pandemic rages in India and South America.

The United States had been a major holdout at the World Trade Organization over a proposal to suspend intellectual property protections in an effort to ramp up vaccine production. But President Biden had come under increasing pressure to throw his support behind the proposal, including from many congressional Democrats.

Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, announced the administration’s position in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.

“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” she said. “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for Covid-19 vaccines.”

Tai said the Biden administration will “actively participate” in conversations with the World Trade Organization to help lift those protections. She acknowledged those conversations will “take time” given the complexity of the issue.

“The Administration’s aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible,” Tai said.

A number of progressive lawmakers had called on Biden to lift the protections in order to more easily get coronavirus vaccines to other countries, but some health company executives argued such a move would not help expedite delivery of vaccines.