[A2k] Paris Accord: proposals for section on medical R&D

[James Love]

This is pretty rough and incomplete... and criticisms, additions and
other suggestions are quite welcome.  Jamie

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On June 19-20, TACD is holding a meeting in Paris, on "New
relationships between creative communities and consumers."  (http://
www.tacd.org/docs/?id=296)  One objective of the meeting is to
negotiate the "Paris Accord," an agreement between creative
communities and consumers.  Pre-meeting discussions about the text
are being held on the A2K discussion list.

(http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k, http://
lists.essential.org/pipermail/a2k/)

Below is proposed text for the section of the Paris Accord on medical
R&D.

Proposals for the section in the Paris Accord on Medical research and
development

1.  Research and development is a necessary and valued component of
the health care system.

2.  A number of different institutions are essential for the support
of medical R&D, including government, intergovernmental, non-
government not-for-profit and for-profit organizations.

3.  The systems for supporting research and development of new drugs
should ensure sustainable sources of finance that support employment
in R&D organizations, but also should not undermine the goal of
access for all for new medical inventions.

4.  Systems for stimulating R&D should address areas of greatest
health need and public interest.

5.  The elements of the current systems of stimulating R&D through
high prices for medical products should be replaced with systems that
reward developers of new products directly for improved health care
outcomes.   There is also a need to expand methods of funding
projects that support open research, and the development of databases
and other research tools, as well as high-risk R&D projects that are
likely to be useful for follow-on innovation.

6.  Science depends upon access to knowledge.   Hoarding of data and
materials must be discouraged.   Intellectual property rules should
not prevent experimental use of inventions or materials, nor should
they discourage or prevent investments in any field of invention.

7.  National governments should eliminate visa restrictions that
limit the ability of students to study at universities in another
nation, or restrict the ability of scientists or engineers to
participate in conferences or gain experience at firms in another
nation.

8.  Methods of protecting investments in clinical trials for new
medicines should not prevent governments from making medicines
available at affordable prices or require unethical or unnecessary
replication of human experiments.

9.  Individuals and communities that collaborate in scientific
research should receive appropriate recognition for contributions to
new scientific discoveries.

10.  Governments must support global agreements to share in the costs
of evaluating new medicines.   Such testing should be transparent,
and funded by sources that do not have incentives to distort or
misrepresent findings, and which address the most useful scientific
and medical questions.



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James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton