The final step in the establishment of a patent pool initiated by international drug-purchasing mechanism UNITAID was taken today, the group announced.
“All the practical hurdles” have been surmounted, said UNITAID Senior Adviser on Intellectual Property and Medicines Ellen ‘t Hoen. Now there is something in place “that can start seriously negotiating with the drug companies” for licences she told Intellectual Property Watch.
UNITAID is “a laboratory for new initiatives and new thinking, and today was an important step for all that,” ‘t Hoen added.
This “should save millions of lives of people living with HIV across the developing world,” UNITAID Executive Board Chair Philippe Douste-Blazy said to Intellectual Property Watch. Only 40 percent of those in need of HIV treatment receive it, he said, but the patent pool will “allow generic manufacturers to produce affordable versions of existing HIV drugs and encourage research into new pediatric treatments in exchange for a fair royalty payment.”
The UNITAID Board decided the organisation will enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with a new Medicines Patent Pool Foundation and provide US$ 4.4 million for its first year of operations. UNITAID leverages price reductions for, and speeds research and development on, pharmaceuticals needed in the developing world. The voluntary patent pool is intended to lower prices and increase access for, to begin with, antiretroviral medicines.
The Patent Pool Foundation, as an independent legal entity, will move out of the World Health Organization but will be in Geneva, continue to be a part of the UNITAID family and to work closely with the WHO, ‘t Hoen said. The foundation can continue say it was an initiative by UNITAID so long as it is not a standing part of the brand, she added. Figuring out how UNITAID and the patent pool would relate and refer to each other was one of the practical hurdles to overcome.
Douste-Blazy said in a statement that formal negotiations with the patent holders can now begin. “We expect the Patent Pool Foundation to have its first licences within a year,” he said.
Now for the hard part — getting the licenses.
Dear All:
I thought that a few news from Brazil concerning this topic would be welcome.
I am a science writer based in São Paulo, former Reuters Fellow at Oxford and have just concluded my PhD thesis about the course of a Brazilian medicine candidate called P-Mapa.
It is an immunomodulator — meaning it rebulds the natural defenses of the organism — and was effective to deter TB in vivo on testes carried out in the US by NIAID teams.
Most importantly, the Brazil based non-profit research network Farmabrasilis, who runs the P-Mapa development, has launched a proposal to fight infectious diseases, which includes the possibility of free of charge licensing of data and methods of production.
For details, please take a look at http://blog.tropika.net/tropika/2010/04/19/news-from-farmabrasilis/ and http://www.farmabrasilis.org.br/todos_conteudos_interna.php?idioma=eng&id=276
Best regards,
Carlos
The issue of getting low cost medicines competitively priced may yet face many obstacles including access to distribution networks and getting through procurement systems. Competition on production may be one element… if it succeeds it will also need to face anti-trust issues, that hopefully can be dealt with from the beginning…
Great news about the patent pool. Hopefully the pool will, in the future, expand beyond AIDS and incorporate patents that address other diseases, as well as hunger in developing countries, and even environmental issues. This is a laudable instance in which patent law and the public interest intersect for the betterment of the planet.
[…] Senior Adviser on Intellectual Property and Medicines Ellen ‘t Hoen told the Intellectual Property Watch that “all the practical hurdles have been surmounted.” Now, there is something in place […]
Hi Carlos Fioravanti,
Good news indeed.
We need the P-Mapa against AIDS and TB urgently.
WHO/UNITAID fellows, the Farmabrasilis proposal goes beyond speeches. Does it sound interesting for you?
Best wishes.
Pietr Sartorius
Johannesburg
S.A.
[…] of the patent pool as an independent legal entity, separate from UNITAID, were taken in June (IPW, Public Health, 8 June 2010). Negotiations with patent holders were at that time cleared to begin. The pool itself was launched […]
[…] is a new initiative that grew out of innovative financing mechanism UNITAID in July of last year (IPW, Public Health, 8 June 2010), in response to concerns about increasing prices on needed medicines due to changing intellectual […]
[…] background stories on the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) are here and […]