The Children's Vaccine Initative Document on Intellectual Property Protection

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

Below is a note that is posted for Ellen 't Hoen, who was the manager 
of the HAI/CI delegation to the World Health Assembly this year.  
The publication that she refers to is avaiable on the web from here:
http://www.vaccines.ch/reading/advocacy.htm

My own impression of the Children's Vaccine publication on Intellectual 
Property  Protection was that it had some good information, but that 
it was also misleading in places, and it unfortunately read much 
like a commercial for strong IP protection, rather than a more balanced
account of the issues.  Also, many believe the issues in vaccine 
development have important differences with issues relating to
other pharmaceutical drugs, a point not made.  

The full title is "Intellectual Property Protection Protection: 
Its Role and Benefits," and there is much emphasis on the benefits
side, which is fine up to a point.  However, there is basically
zero discussion of abuses or costs of the patent system, and it
clearly lacks a consumer prospective.  For example, on the issue
of the impact of the patents on prices, this is what the document
says:


      Patents and the royalties which they command do raise 
      the price of vaccines in the short term, but not dramatically. 
      For some vaccines, the percentage of price increase is 
      negligible (e.g. Hib-0-2%).  For others, it is slightly higher, 
      (acellular pertussis-2-10%) To date, the price of the recombinant 
      Hepatitis B vaccine is the most affected by royalty costs, at 
      13 - 15%. The more significant increment in vaccine price comes 
      not from the royalty costs but from lack of competition
      during the patent period. Moreover, patents do not preclude 
      the manufacture and marketing of competing products that do 
      not infringe on the specific innovation protected by the patent.


Many readers of this report will think the impact of the patent is to 
raise the price of a vaccine by 0 to 15 percent.  The document doesn't say 
this (it concedes that the most significant increase in price comes
from the lack of competition.  Unstated is that this can increase 
prices several hundred percent, for example by 2,000 percent for 
Fluconazole in Thailand, to refer to a non-vaccine case), but the 
authors are clever enough to omit certain information to give the 
reader an impression that is untrue.   I personally don't think that 
public policy documents from public health groups should be 
deliberately misleading.  

  Here is Ellen's note.  Jamie


<---------begin Ellen's Note----------------------------------------->

Subject: RE: PACHA meeting and CVI report on IP
   Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 10:06:41 +0200
  From: "Ellen 't Hoen" <ethoen@csi.com>
    To: "'love@cptech.org'" <love@cptech.org>

Dear Jamie,

Thanks very much for this report. So great to have your ears and eyes in 
Washington.

Some additional information about the booklet in IP that was distributed by 
the IFPMA at the Assembly.

Title is Intellectual property protection - its role and benefits. It is 
published by the Children's vaccine initiative and states: This is not a 
formal publication of the CVI.

Please note that CVI  is not a WHO programme but a global coalition of 
organisations from the public, nongovernmental and private, including the 
vaccine industry. It is co-sponsored by UNICEF,UNDP,WHO, the World Bank and 
the Rockefeller Foundation.
Though it has its office at WHO headquarters it is not a WHO programme.

In addition to the co-sponsors mentioned above the following have 
contributed to its work last year:
governments of Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, USA and the Fondation Merieux 
and the William H. Gates Foundation.
WEB site: www.vaccines.ch

It was certainly no coincidence that this publication was published shortly 
before the WHA. It is all about protecting IP and little about protecting 
people. It was written by Ms Elizabeth Fuller.  The conclusion says: " Even 
if it [IP protection] hinders their access to vaccines in the short term, 
IP systems in the long term have shown their ultimate value in fostering 
innovation and the large financial investments required to develop ideas 
into safe and efficacious vaccine products, which eventually benefit all 
children".

Even if most of them have to wait for them for 20 years? Do we know 
anything about who and where vaccines are developed and who pays for it?

copies can be requested from e-mail: cvi@who.ch ordering code is: cvi/99.04


Ellen 't Hoen
ethoen@compuserve.com


-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org