E-DRUG: Mike Moore, DG of WTO, joins access debate
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[After Dr Brundtland of WHO, now also Mr Mike Moore, DG of WTO,
joins the international debate on TRIPS and Access to drugs.
WTO finally admits that the 3 public health safeguards as proposed
by WHO (Parallel importation, compulsory licensing and Bolar (early working))
are permissable under TRIPS.
It will be interesting to see the impact of this on the court case in
South Africa, where industry maintains that parallel import is not
TRIPS compliant...
And, who is going to help the developing countries to put these public
health safeguards into legislation?
Copied as fair use. NN]
Yes, Drugs for the Poor - and Patents as Well
by Mike Moore, WTO
International Herald Tribune, Thursday, February 22, 2001
GENEVA Every year malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS kill around 6 million
people, almost all of them in the developing world. These premature
deaths are a reproach to us all. They are also a huge blow to
countries' hopes for development. Urgently, more needs to be done to
save the lives of millions of poor people.
Part of the problem is poor countries' lack of access to drugs. The
poor cannot afford expensive medicines. Keeping an AIDS patient alive
for a year can cost up to $15,000 - 24 times the average annual income
in Zimbabwe, where one in four adults is HIV-positive.
Critics of the World Trade Organization say its agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) makes
matters worse. They argue that by requiring developing countries to
enforce pharmaceutical patents, the agreement enables drug companies
to charge exorbitant prices that the poor cannot afford.
Clearly, we need to find new ways of improving access to existing
drugs in developing countries. But we also need to give pharmaceutical
companies an incentive to develop new drugs. Industry puts the average
cost of developing a new drug at around $500 million. Were it not for
a patent system that rewards companies for risking millions on
research, anti-AIDS drugs would not exist.
That is why the TRIPS agreement tries to strike a healthy balance
between the short-term need to make vital drugs available to those who
need them and the long-term, equally vital need to encourage research
into new drugs. To reward research, the agreement protects patents for
20 years (although, since it usually takes years to test and approve
new drugs, a patent's effective life is much shorter). To improve
access to drugs, it imposes some conditions and allows certain
restrictions on patent rights.
For one thing, patent holders have to disclose their invention. This
allows others to use information about a patented drug to research new
drugs during the patent's life, and ensures that it is truly in the
public domain once the patent expires. Second, if a patent holder
refuses to license a patented drug on reasonable commercial terms, a
government is allowed to license it to other companies or use it itself
without the patent holder's authorization, so long as adequate
compensation is paid.
Third, as a recent WTO panel has concluded, governments can facilitate
the "early working" of patented pharmaceuticals by generic
competitors. Fourth, if governments authorize parallel imports of a
patented drug from countries where it is sold more cheaply, this
cannot be challenged at the WTO.
Developing countries have generally had to enforce the TRIPS agreement
since Jan. 1, 2000, when a five-year transition period ended, but
those which do not already provide patent protection for
pharmaceuticals have until 2005 to introduce it. The transition period
for least-developed countries ends in 2006 (with the possibility of an
extension).
But most developing and least-developed countries already grant patent
protection for pharmaceuticals. For them, the real significance of the
TRIPS agreement may be less the requirement to protect new drugs and
more the explicit enshrining in international law of the flexibility I
have described.
One promising idea is differential pricing; pharmaceutical companies
would charge less for drugs in poor countries than in rich ones. This
is consistent with the TRIPS agreement and is backed by, among others,
the World Health Organization, the European Commission, M�decins sans
Fronti�res and some industrialists. It is already starting to happen.
The WTO and WHO secretariats are organizing a workshop to explore how
it could become more widespread.
Important issues are how to prevent low-priced drugs from leaking back
from poor countries to rich ones and how to convince rich-country
consumers and taxpayers of the fairness of lower prices in poor
countries. Of the 300-odd drugs deemed essential by the WHO for basic
health care in developing countries, fewer than 20 are under patent
protection anywhere.
There are no effective treatments for some ills that affect people in
poor countries only, because developing them is not commercially
viable. Only 10 percent of global research funds target diseases that
affect the poorest 90 percent of the world's population. Donors
urgently need to stump up funds to finance research, for instance,
into vaccines against malaria and AIDS.
Funds are also needed to ensure that companies have a credible market
for new drugs and vaccines that they develop for such diseases, as
well as to help pay for existing essential drugs, insecticides and
anti-malaria bed nets.
Nor should providing the basics, such as clean water, good sanitation,
better nutrition and more condom use, be neglected. Lower tariffs and
taxes and more efficient distribution channels are also important.
Most of this is outside the WTO's remit. But by promoting free trade
we can make a difference. Openness is essential for economic growth,
which can help pay for better health care and sanitation.
The writer is director-general of the World Trade Organization. He
contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
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