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News >> April 26th, Intellectual Property Rights International Day |
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April 26th, Intellectual Property Rights International Day
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The public awareness campaign “Health in the Millennium: a missing signature” by Farmacéuticos Mundi and Medicus Mundi Catalunya assesses the current situation regarding access to essential drugs and intellectual property rights, on World Intellectual Property Day, with the opinion of health economist Joan Rovira.
Access to drugs, innovation and millennium goals, Joan Rovira, University of Barcelona.
Target 17 of the Millennium Development Goals refers to access to affordable essential drugs for the population in developing countries.
It is obvious that access to affordable drugs is a requirement to enjoy a satisfactory health level. On the other hand, evidence shows that 2 billion people do not benefit from this access. According to the WHO, approximately 80% of these 2 billion people live in low-income countries and the other 20% in average income countries. Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to consider the problem of access to drugs as an inherent problem in poor countries. The low income level and the limitations of health systems constitute certainly two of the main causes for the lack of access to drugs in poor countries; however the problem is exacerbated by the high prices of some drugs, especially the newest ones. The explanation for these high costs can be found - at least partly - in the mechanisms that promote and guide research, fundamentally, patents and other exclusivity rights over the market (experiments' data protection, brands, etc), which leave the initiative to determine the volume and orientation of research in the hands of the private sector according to each company's profitability goals, which is definitely legitimate, but not always effective nor efficient in terms of social priorities. These mechanisms give rise to very high prices for new drugs. In the richest countries with universal health systems, this cost is assumed by the society as a whole, on the contrary, in low income countries, with an insufficiently developed health system, people have to pay for drugs and only elites with high acquisitive power can access these products. On the other hand, the exclusivity of the market, derived from property rights, does not constitute an incentive to invest in research in the case of diseases related to poverty, given the fact that there isn't a solvent demand for the final product.
The topic of intellectual property rights is complex and foreign to the usual preoccupations of most health professionals. However, a basic comprehension of its effects, both positive and negative, is essential in order to generate the necessary social debate around the characteristics and the role that they should have in order to promote development and social well-being. Patents present a lot of advantages as a mechanism to stimulate innovation. Among others, they constitute a decentralized mechanism: any individual or company who has an idea they believe is interesting for society can develop it, dedicating time and resources to this purpose. If it is successful, the patent will allow them to recuperate the investment and obtain benefits that will compensate the risk that he assumed. There is no need for a bureaucratic organization to approve the initiative and assign the required resources for the investigation and research that someone imagined.
However, there is no justification for supposing that the perspective of a monopole should be the only or the best incentive for all innovative activity. Space and war technology are a clear example of alternative ways to promote innovation, especially when the goal to reach is clear, a situation that frequently occurs in the field of biomedical and pharmaceutical innovation.
There are stringent limitations to conceiving the problem of access to drugs simply as a poverty problem. On one hand because it overlooks the fact that high prices for drugs are creating severe financial problems among many families and for most of the rich countries' health systems. On the other hand, it ignores that high prices are partly due to Intellectual Property Rights, an institution that the rich countries are imposing on the poor. Finally, it can lead to confronting the problem exclusively through donations and discounts for the poorest countries. Possibly, these initiatives shouldn't be underestimated; especially if they are carried out with a multilateral focus – like the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – and without demanding from receivers unacceptable political counterparties. For the poorest countries, it is probably one of their few options, available on the short term, for substantially improving access to drugs. Nevertheless, developing countries do not want a mechanism that depends on a continued charity will from rich countries, but a fairer international law, which allows them to progress in the path towards development in an autonomous and independent way.
The positive effects that Intellectual Property Rights have had historically on many countries' technological progress and development should not be denied. But it is also necessary to recognize their limitations in the consecution of certain goals, as well as the possibility or the need to modify the specific forms that they adopt at certain times and places. To be precise, more protection of Intellectual Property does not automatically imply more innovation; furthermore, in some cases the opposite is true. On the other hand, a uniform Intellectual Property international system is not the best option for every country. All the same, it is precisely what we, industrialized countries, are trying to impose to the rest of the world, forgetting that today's developed countries were able to decide without any rush the most convenient protection along each step of the development process (for example, Switzerland introduced drug patents in 1967) without any pressure nor hurry from other countries.
In short, it is a crucial topic both for development and access to new drugs, even if it is obviously not the only cause, and for other broader economic development and social welfare goals, that require a non-prejudiced analysis, and possibly, the introduction of new complementary or alternative approaches. The Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH), created two years ago by the WHO, recently released (April 3rd, 2006) its conclusions report
[1]
in which we find 50 recommendations, such as considering a global R+D plan, preventing the risks of the free-trade market for public health, and the adoption of a more proactive role by the WHO in the field of Intellectual Property Rights.
On the other hand, Brazil and Kenya recently submitted to the WHO’s Executive Commission (January 23rd and 28th, 2006) a resolution that defends the establishment of a “global frame on essential health and development” for its consideration at the next World Health Assembly.
[2]
The resolution recommends that new proposals be studied in order to establish a global frame to support a research based on needs, coherent with general interest issues and which guarantee that bilateral trade treaties do not limit the flexibilities and safeguards of the agreement about the aspects of the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), such as mandatory licenses, that allow a country to produce a generic version of a given drug, still under patent, in cases of Public Health crisis; or parallel imports, which allow a country - that does not have the capacity to make the generic – to import it from another one.
Without any doubt something is moving within Intellectual Property Rights and drug innovation: truths that have been traditionally accepted without any clear proof to support are questioned and alternatives and complementary options are proposed.
In general, the technological innovation has promoted economic and social development. Isn’t it logic that we should also innovate the mechanisms that promote access and innovation?
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