[Ip-health] FT: US move on drug patents under attack

[mpalmedo@cptech.org]

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US move on drug patents under attack
By Frances Williams in Geneva
Published: May 23 2003 5:00 | Last Updated: May 23 2003 5:00

Health campaigners yester-day criticised a US attempt to enlist World
Health Organisation support for stronger patent protection for medicines,
claiming it would push up drug prices in poor countries.

A US resolution to the WHO annual assembly that opened in Geneva this week
urged members to promote pharmaceutical research and development by
boosting incentives for industry, including better patent and data
protection. New medicines, vaccines and diagnostics accounted for 40 per
cent of the increase in life expectancy between 1986 and 2000, the US
claimed.

However, campaign groups such as M=E9decins sans Fronti=E8res (MSF) and Oxf=
am
say patents have little or no impact on research into diseases of the
poor, an argument backed by the UK's expert commission on intellectual
property rights. In its report last year it concluded that intellectual
property (IP) "hardly plays any role at all" in stimulating research,
except for diseases with a large market in the industrialised world.

"Of the 1,393 new drugs approved between 1975 and 1999, only 16 (or just
over 1 per cent) were specifically developed for tropical diseases and
tuberculosis, diseases that account for 11.4 per cent of the global
disease burden," 10 non-governmental groups said,accusing the US of "an
almost blind belief in the IP system".

The US resolution stands little chance of success at the assembly as most
of the WHO's 192 members are developing countries. But opponents have been
dismayed that the resolution makes no reference to negotiations in the
World Trade Organisation to allow poor nations to import generic copies of
patented drugs in case of need.

"The US has broken every promise made concerning developing countries'
right to access low-cost generic medicines. . . and is using the world
health assembly to champion monopoly protections on life-saving drugs,"
Brook Baker, of US-based Health GAP, said yesterday.

The WTO talks have been stalled since the US blocked a deal in December.
Harvey Bale, director-general of the International Federation of
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations, said yesterday the patent-based
industry saw the December deal as a "licence to steal".

MSF said poor countries were granting more patents on medicines than
necessary under WTO rules because they lacked the expertise to judge
whether a patent application was justified.