[Ip-health] CAPPE IGWG submission on WHA 59.24 Resolution

[Thomas Pogge]

Dear IP-Health List Members,
Having consumed, and learned much from, CPTech's work and IP-Health List
contributions over the last years, we'd like to share with you our IGWG
submission on WHA Resolution 59.24:
www.who.int/public_hearing_phi/summary/en/ -- look for "CAPPE" --
which we hope is usefully complementary to that made by Jamie and the
CPTech Team. Our submission describes work we are doing in a small team
in Australia. There's a 500-word summary and a 2500-word text (which
contains the summary material). I reprint the summary below. I have
benefited greatly from a discussion of this ongoing work at CPTech
Headquarters in October and, with the rest of the team, would be happy
to receive further comments, suggestions, criticisms, and the like.
All best wishes,
Thomas

With generous funding (2006-08) from the Australian Research Council,
our team at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE,
at the Australian National University in Canberra) is developing a
feasible and politically realistic pharmaceutical patent reform plan
that fits precisely the objectives set forth in WHA59.24.

Our central idea is to create a second type of pharmaceutical patent
that rewards inventors not with monopoly pricing powers but in
proportion to the invention=92s impact on the global burden of disease
(GBD). Any inventor firm is free to choose either the conventional
patent or the new Patent-2. If it chooses the latter, its patented
knowledge is treated as a public good, making the new medicine available
for generic production worldwide.

/Pre-patent Incentives/. Patent-2 will incentivise research and
development of drugs for poverty-related diseases that remain neglected
under the current patent regime. Moreover, while traditional patents
make it far more lucrative to develop treatments rather than vaccines,
Patent-2 entails no such bias and focuses potential inventors solely on
developing interventions that reduce the GDB in the most cost-effective way=
.

/Post-Patent Incentives/. A Patent-2 holder has unusual but welcome
incentives:

to make one=92s drug accessible to even very poor people, by selling it
below marginal cost of production or by giving technical and financial
support for its manufacture by low-cost generic producers;

to ensure that patients are fully instructed in the proper use of one=92s
drug, so that this drug has maximum public health impact;

to collaborate toward improving health systems of poor countries in
order to enhance the impact of one=92s invention there.

The reform thus aligns the interests of patent holders with those of
patients and generic drug producers =97 interests that the current regime
brings into sharp opposition. The reform also harmonizes the moral and
prudential interests of inventors who now must often choose between
recouping their research investments and preventing avoidable suffering
and deaths.

The incentives of Patent-2 materialize only insofar as the rewards are
certain. We envision a treaty in which willing countries commit to
contributing a certain monetary amount per unit of GBD reduction. This
amount can be proportioned to GNP =97 with some progressivity perhaps
according to /per/ /capita/ GNP so as to exempt the poorest countries.
The scheme would cost money only if and insofar as it actually leads to
reductions in the GBD. Its introduction would be supported by the
pharmaceutical/biotech industry which gains new opportunities for
profitable and morally urgent R&D without losing any profit
opportunities it now enjoys.

To be workable, our reform plan requires various complex specifications.
It requires, for instance, an appropriate metric for the GBD, sufficient
data to assess the GBD /ex post /and to make plausible baseline GBD
projections some years into the future, rules for allocating any
specific GBD reduction among contributing pharmaceutical innovators, and
adequate mechanisms for curbing corruption and gaming. Our CAPPE
research team is primarily focused on showing how such technical issues
can be resolved. We are fortunate to enjoy substantial international
support and collaboration.

--
Professor Thomas Pogge
718 International Affairs Bldg.
Columbia Political Science
New York, NY 10027
Tel. xx1-212-8548534
Fax  xx1-212-2220598
www.columbia.edu/~tp6
www.accessmeds.org