This was the displace debated this evening past times the Global Development Forum in St James’s, Piccadilly. Yes they do, said Ruth Mayne, a TRIPs researcher alongside leading charity OXFAM GB and a specialist on access to patented medicines. No they don’t, replied Sir Dominic Cadbury, Executive President of the Wellcome Trust and quondam CEO of Cadbury Schweppes. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 minute speaker inwards back upwards of the displace was Dr Ken Shadlen, Lecturer inwards Development Studies at LSE.
Opening the debate, Ruth Mayne contrasted the high prices charged for patented medicines as well as the big profits made past times pharma giants alongside the suffering as well as poverty of the sick inwards some of the world’s poorest nations. She argued that WTO membership as well as TRIPs compliance had forced pathetic countries to adopt standards of IP protection which benefited only the rich. She criticised the proprietary drug companies for their seat inwards opposing compulsory licensing of HIV AIDS treatments inwards South Africa as well as maintained that developing countries spent some U.S.A. $20 billion a twelvemonth for the privilege of using IP-protected goods as well as services. Patents powerfulness provide incentives to invent, but they however didn’t plough over pathetic people purchasing power.
Sir Dominic Cadbury defended the expensive nature of patented drugs past times reference to the extraordinarily high cost of developing novel products as well as the 90% summation failure charge per unit of measurement inwards coming upwards alongside successful products. He pointed out that sick wellness inwards the Third World cannot endure blamed exclusively on IP rights when 90% of drugs listed every bit essential past times the World Health Organization were non patent-protected. Protection was necessary if investment inwards novel products was to endure stimulated. He added that TRIPs was non a straitjacket (it permitted compulsory licensing as well as parallel importation, for example) as well as that developing countries which joined the World Trade Organization and agreed to adopt its IP norms did as well as so voluntarily.
Ken Shadlen conceded that IP rights were non “good” or “bad” inwards themselves. They were only tools of evolution policy, along alongside many others, as well as it was how they were used which made them skilful or bad. He reminded the audience that pharma patents constituted only or as well as so 10% of patents as well as that at that spot were lots of other IP rights apart from patents. The processes of industrialisation as well as technology scientific discipline transfer could endure helped past times the protection of IP rights inwards developing countries, but only where those IP rights had to endure exploited there. TRIPs permitted the compulsory licensing of IP rights where at that spot was a national emergency or wellness crisis, but non where it was only industrialisation that was at stake. This was a failing which TRIPs should address.
notes that the moral declaration inwards favour of widening access to medicines is a rigid ane – peoples’ lives as well as good beingness depend on it (this is non as well as so much the representative alongside industrial technology scientific discipline transfer). In as well as so far every bit this access it non forthcoming, the blame cannot endure placed exclusively at the door of IP rights. Issues such every bit distribution mechanisms as well as infrastructure as well as poverty must also endure addressed, but this does non hateful that problems alongside the patent rights granted nether TRIPs as well as the mode inwards which they were negotiated tin endure ignored.
Granting rigid IP rights inwards developing countries immunises patent owners from contest from legal generic versions of drugs for which they ain patent rights as well as therefore agency that at that spot is no competitive limit on the toll that the patent possessor tin accuse (the inwardness of a patent “monopoly”). The powerfulness to accuse high prices is meant to human activeness every bit an incentive for pharma companies to invest inwards research. This incentive can’t operate vis-à-vis developing countries though if the drugs are priced as well as so highly that those inwards developing countries cannot afford them because pharma companies volition simply endure unable to obtain whatsoever revenue from their invest activities inwards those markets. In response, pharma companies tin either turn down to provide those markets as well as rely on their TRIPs-based IP rights, which would postulate hold disastrous effects on access to medicines or lower their prices.
realises though rigid IP rights tin endure of assistance to developing countries. They tin endure used past times pharma companies to halt the sale of counterfeit drugs. Additionally, rigid IP rights inwards developed countries tin brand a pregnant contribution to developing countries if the developed countries past times their patent or merchandise grade laws prohibit the parallel import of drugs from developing countries. This prevents the medicines from “flowing” dorsum to developed countries where it tin enhance a higher toll than the toll that they were pose on the marketplace inwards the developing province for as well as allows them to rest on the marketplace inwards the developing country.
More on generic drugs here, here and here
How generic drugs touching pricing inwards the pharmaceutical manufacture here
Generic drugs as well as developing countries here and here
IP rights as well as the HIV-AIDS number here
Do IP rights confer whatsoever pregnant create goodness on developing countries? Click here and here
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