[A2k] IP-Watch: Newcomer Howard Zucker, Former US Official, To Head WHO IP Group

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=3D398&res=3D1024_ff&print=3D0


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    19/9/2006


      Newcomer Howard Zucker, Former US Official, To Head WHO IP Group


By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen

Speculation since May about who will lead the secretariat in a new
intergovernmental working group on intellectual property and public
health at the World Health Organization may now be put to rest as it is
official that the post will go to Howard Zucker, WHO sources say.

Zucker <http://www.who.int/dg/adg/zucker/en/>is the assistant director
general for health technology and pharmaceuticals at the WHO, and he
will remain in this position in the future, according to a WHO
spokesperson. He joined the WHO in January 2006 from the United States
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he was assistant
secretary of health.

He has previously has shown support for innovation to help developing
countries obtain access to essential medicines, is the head of a WHO
task force on counterfeit medicines.

Second to Zucker and executive secretary of group will be Elil
Renganathan, who was most recently director for the WHO Mediterranean
Centre for Vulnerability Reduction in Tunis, Tunisia. He is from Malaysia.

Zucker was unavailable for comment at press time as he is attending the
regional WHO committee meeting for the Western Pacific in Auckland, New
Zealand, and will thereafter attend the regional WHO meeting for the
Americas in Washington, DC, an informed WHO source said.

The WHO regional committee meetings run from 22 August to 29 September,
according to the WHO, and the Washington meeting will be the last one in
a series of six regional committee meetings.

The WHO has previously indicated that the regional committees could
choose two governments that would present candidates for a =93management
group=94 when the IP group is scheduled to meet for the first time on 4
December in Geneva (/IPW/, Public Health
<http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=3D373>, 25 July 2006).

Renganathan, however, relocated to Geneva last month, a source in
Tunisia said, but he was also unavailable for comment at press time.

The counterfeit medicines task force led by Zucker was initiated at a
Rome conference in February. At a meeting
<http://www.ifpma.org/pdf/Zucker_Counterfeit_WHO_24May06.pdf#search=3D%22if=
pma%20howard%20zucker%22>
at the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and
Associations in Geneva on 24 May, Zucker said, =93Individual patients and
public health are of course WHO=92s main concern, but we know very well
that they are not the only casualties. Counterfeit drugs lead to a loss
of confidence in the entire health system, they affect the image of
manufacturers, pharmacists, doctors, private and government institutions
alike. This is why each and every sector affected must be actively
involved in the solution.=94

In 2004, The Hill newspaper in Washington, DC reported
<http://www.hillnews.com/news/091604/donor.aspx>that Zucker was blocked
by the White House from a promotion at HHS because he had donated money
to the competing Democratic Party (even though he also gave to Bush=92s
Republican Party).

The working group was mandated by the World Health Assembly in May in a
resolution that merged two previously proposed resolutions on
innovation, public health and intellectual property (/IPW/, Public
Health <http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=3D320>, 27 May 2006).

The working group will be open to all member countries, and although the
process has not been clarified yet, non-governmental organisations and
experts are also expected to be invited to join the group.

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