[Ip-health] FINAL REMINDER: CPTech Brown Bag at 10:30AM with Kevin Outterson (TOMORROW)

[Joy Spencer]

The Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech) is hosting a seminar by
Kevin Outterson on "Patent Buy-Outs for Global Disease Innovation."

Date: Wednesday May 10, 2006
Time: *10:30*am-12:00pm (please note the time)
Venue: 1621 Connecticut Avenue Suite 500, Washington, DC 20009

Kevin Outterson is an Associate Professor of Law at West Virginia
University. He is also a member of the American Health Lawyer's
Association's FDA Task Force. In 2004, Governor Wise appointed him to a
4 year term with the West Virginia Pharmaceutical Cost Management
Council. Some of his professional papers include, "Patent Buy-Outs for
Global Disease Innovations for low and middle-income countries" and
"Fair followers: Expanding access to generic pharmaceuticals for
low-income populations."

Professor Outterson's presentation will discuss the concept of patent
buy-outs to facilitate generic competition outside the OECD for global
disease innovation. Global pharmaceutical markets and global disease
burdens are mismatched, making this proposal uniquely attractive. Some
80% to 90% of the global sales of patented pharmaceuticals occur in the
30 wealthy countries which are members of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), roughly similar to the World Bank=92s
definition of 29 high-income countries. Pharmaceutical markets for
patented products largely follow the money.

But the vast majority of patients needing treatment for global chronic
and infectious diseases reside in non-OECD (middle- and low-income)
countries. These countries include more than 84% of the world=92s people,
and they are disproportionately sick. The global burden of disease falls
most heavily where the market is least attractive. This mismatch between
global pharmaceutical markets and global disease burdens leads to an
interesting opportunity. Patented pharmaceuticals could be offered to
more than 84% of the world=92s population at generic prices. (Only
high-income country patients would bear pharmaceutical patent rents).
The gain in health from increasingly affordable pharmaceuticals would be
considerable. The primary disadvantage of this plan would be a quite
small reduction in global R&D cost recovery; but even this small deficit
could be restored to the companies through a carefully designed patent
buy-out mechanism.


Other upcoming brown bags:

June 14 - Dean Baker on "The Free Market Drug Act Proposal for Public
Financing for Prescription Drug Research"

If you would like to join us next wednesday *morning *please RSVP your
name, title, organization and contact details to: joy.spencer@cptech.org
or 202.332.2670 (t)