[Ip-health] AIDS Healthcare Foundation on WHO Report

[Mike Palmedo]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060405/law152.html?.v=3D2

AHF Lauds WHO Report Urging Ease of Drug Patents in Poor Countries -
Commission Calls for Reduced Prices on Essential Medicines, Such as
Second-Line AIDS Drugs; Also, Warns Against Trade Pacts that Limits
Access to Lifesaving Drugs

Wednesday April 5, 7:29 pm ET

LOS ANGELES, April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF),
the largest AIDS organization in the US which operates free AIDS
treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia
today lauded a 228-page report commissioned by the World Health
Organization (WHO) and drawn up by the Commission on Intellectual
Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) urging
international drug companies to reduce prices and ease patents on
medicines to poor countries. The independent body also called for rich
countries to avoid requiring the strengthening of patent protections as
a condition to joining international trade agreements when it limits
access to medications in poor countries. Most controversially, the
report recommended that developing countries use their ability to issue
compulsory licensing and override patent rights when necessary.

"AIDS Healthcare Foundation applauds WHO and the Commission for this
timely report that not only urges drug companies to lower drug prices
and ease patents for low-and middle-income countries, but also
acknowledges the responsibility of resource-rich nations to ensure that
international trade agreements do not impede access to lifesaving
medications in poor countries by restricting the production of cheaper
generics," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare
Foundation. "Our own experience as a treatment provider in Honduras -- a
country that will soon be bound by stricter patent protections under the
Central American Free Trade Agreement -- is that patients often enter
our clinics at risk for medication resistance because of prior sporadic
use of donated AIDS medications. If the WHO Report recommendations are
adopted and greater access to affordable HIV/AIDS medications is
achieved, it will mean vastly improved health outcomes for patients in
low and middle-income countries. We agree with the CIPIH sentiment that
without access to the lifesaving products of drug company innovation,
there can be no public health benefits -- in Honduras or in other poor
countries of the world."

AHF believes that a program that allows for the production of cheaper
generic versions of newer AIDS drugs is essential to stemming the tide
of AIDS around the globe as drug resistance will require that more and
more people be treated with these newer, or second-line, drugs -- often
still under patent protection. Ensuring access to affordable AIDS
medications will require the cooperation of all stakeholders, including
world bodies, like the WHO and the Global Fund, as well as governments
and international pharmaceutical companies.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation strongly advocated for the removal of
provisions in CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) that
required participating countries (Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras) to strengthen patent laws
to mirror US policy, making it harder to produce cheaper generic
versions of AIDS drugs and severely limiting access to life-saving AIDS
drugs throughout Central America. AHF, along with Congressman Henry Hyde
(R-IL) and Congressman Tom Lantos (D- CA), also hosted a conference last
November in Washington D.C., bringing together policymakers, industry
officials and health advocates to assess the impact of intellectual
property protections on access to essential medications, including
HIV/AIDS drugs. The one-day meeting, entitled 'Global Trade and Access
to Lifesaving Drugs,' included three panels of distinguished speakers
opening a dialogue about how to ensure that global trade agreements
protect intellectual property and medical innovation, without placing
barriers on access to lifesaving medicines and becoming a hindrance in
the fight against global epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS.

According to "WHO Plea to Drug Companies," by Sarah Boseley, which
appeared in The Guardian on April 4, 2006: "Drug companies should not
take out patents on their new medicines or enforce patents in poor
countries if that is likely to prevent patients from getting them, an
influential commission set up by the World Health Organization said
yesterday. The Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation
and Public Health spent two years drawing up proposals on the
contentious and hard-fought issues of access to medicines in poor
countries. Controversy over deaths from HIV/AIDS, which has become a
treatable disease in the rich world, was behind the setting up of the
commission under the former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss. The
pharmaceutical industry has long argued that patents, granting a 20-year
exclusive right to market a drug, are not the problem. It says that the
absence of clinics, hospitals and medical staff are the real reason why
people do not get treated. But the commission disagrees, saying generic
companies should be allowed to make cheap copies in poor countries."


--
Mike Palmedo
Research and Web
Consumer Project on Technology
T =96 202-332-2670
F =96 202-332-2673
mpalmedo@cptech.org