[Ip-health] RE: [e-drug] EU Urged To Back Poor Countries

[Donald W. Light]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]


Of equal and pressing importance is the following. I would appreciate
feedback.



THE G8: PROFITS BEFORE ERADICATING POVERTY





Despite Angela Merkel's pledge that global poverty is a priority for G8
policy, a little known commitment has been made to spend the $1.5 billion in
donations to eradicate diseases of the poor so that three-quarters of it
will go to extra profits for a global pharmaceutical company and one quarter
to meeting the costs of vaccines for pneumococcal diseases.



The contract being drawn up is called an Advanced Market Commitment, or AMC.
Originally, it was designed to match the revenues and profits that big
companies make on drugs for affluent markets so that investing in research
to discover vaccines for neglected diseases would be as attractive as
developing another drug for wealthy nations. In reality, a company would be
unlikely to receive the matching jackpot. It would depend on the long shot
of developing a successful new vaccine, on whether a competitor also
developed one, and on recipient poor countries agreeing to participate.



In the case of pneumococcal vaccines, however, the AMC rationale is
irrelevant because the vaccines have already been discovered and their
clinical trials are already funded out of the large expected profits from
sales in affluent markets. Thus this G8 "AMC pilot" is neither an AMC nor a
pilot of one. Yet advisers to Merkel, Gordon Brown and G8 leaders have
persuaded them it is both.



By using an AMC contract, the G8 is projected to pay $5.00 a dose for
pneumoccocal vaccines that cost about $1.25 on a sustainable, nonprofit
basis that includes plant and other set-up investments. Paying $5.00 means
the donations will buy 300 million doses, while 1.2 million children in the
world's poorest nations could be immunized at the breakeven price. Vaccines
lift the human and economic burdens of disease in one shot; so G8 leaders
should maximize the number of children immunized.



There is a larger concern as well. The AMC design, developed at the World
Bank in 2000 and promoted by the Gates Foundation, commercializes the global
campaign to reduce poverty by setting the precedent of pricing vaccines at
several times their breakeven level. The G8 contract is also turning the
organizations administering the program, like the GAVI Alliance, into agents
for helping global pharmaceutical companies make large profits on medicines
for poor nations. Already the rationale and rhetoric of the GAVI Alliance
has shifted to justify paying four times the sustainable price for these
vaccines that already are fully paid up in profitable sales. The same
applies to the new vaccines for rotavirus. Will donors stand for most of
their money going to profits rather than to helping the world's poorest
children?



Pharmaceutical companies are committed to their social mission and programs
for the poor. They need to be approached on this basis to sell these
vaccines at a sustainable, break-even price. Even better would be to
negotiate licenses and permissions so that the donated money pays
third-world companies to make the vaccines for the poor. That way the
donated money would boost the economies of low-income countries. Their lower
cost structure might get the price down to $1.00 a dose so that 300 million
more children could be saved. This way, the donors would see their money
providing a double benefit, and companies would gain much-needed respect for
being good global citizens.





* * * * * * * * *

Donald W. Light is a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
and professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He
is an expert in global pharmaceutical policy and helped develop AMCs.



Contacts: Light@nias.knaw.nl.  Tel: 31-70-512-2742.















Donald W. Light

Fellow 2006-2007

Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study

31-(0)70-512-2742





-----Original Message-----
From: e-drug-bounces@healthnet.org [mailto:e-drug-bounces@healthnet.org] On
Behalf Of Alexandra HEUMBER
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 4:33 PM
To: ip-health@lists.essential.org; e-drug@healthnet.org
Subject: [e-drug] EU Urged To Back Poor Countries



E-DRUG: EU Urged To Back Poor Countries

---------------------------------------



http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=642&res=1024



6 June 2007

EU Urged To Back Poor Countries' Use Of TRIPS Flexibilities

By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch



BRUSSELS - The European Union should stop demanding that poor countries

apply its intellectual property rules to medicines through trade

negotiations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc, legal

experts argued at an 4 June event here.



The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, is hoping to conclude

free trade deals known as Economic Partnership Agreements with 76 ACP

countries by the end of this year. Under proposals put forward by the

Commission, these would require ACP countries to place EU intellectual

property rules on their national statute books.



Frederick Abbott, a professor of international law at Florida State

University (US), said that if the Commission is successful, it would

impose a 'substantial burden' on the countries concerned and that there

could be adverse consequences for public health. Instead, he recommended

that the EU encourage poor countries to make use of flexibilities in rules

on intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Doing so could drive down the cost of drugs that would prove prohibitive

should the patents on them be enforced.



Abbott has been hired by the European Parliament's committee on

international trade to prepare an analysis of what policy options the EU

has to boost the supply of medicines in poor countries.

Presenting his initial findings on 4 June, Abbott considered whether the

Parliament should endorse a December 2005 protocol amending the WTO's

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

(IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 6 December 2005).



The protocol is designed to give permanent effect to a 2003 waiver from

TRIPS agreed by to by WTO members. The waiver allows countries lacking

drug manufacturing capacity the increased possibility to import generic

versions of patented medicines produced under compulsory license. It

followed the declaration of the 2001 WTO ministerial conference in Doha,

Qatar, that intellectual property rights should be interpreted in a way

that protects public health and promotes 'access to medicines for all.'

Abbott said that if members of Parliament decide to push for a

renegotiation of the amendment, there is a risk that the pharmaceutical

industry will succeed in restricting the protocol's scope so that it could

only be used to cover certain diseases.



Yet while the WTO has asked its 150 member governments to ratify the

protocol by the end of 2007, Abbott argued that the Parliament may be

right to stall on approving it. Delay could be used as a tactic to

pressure the Commission and the 27 EU governments to refrain from

insisting that ACP countries agree to apply EU standards on intellectual

property.

Jerome Reichman, professor of law at Duke University (US), said that poor

countries in general have seen 'an enormous flood of patent applications"

in recent years. Colombia's patent office, for example, has some 3,500

applications pending. Reichman, who is co-author of the report with Abbott,
said that the European Commission's proposals to the ACP countries would
require them to enforce intellectual property in a way that presumed in
favour of patent holders and compensate them for losses incurred when
patents are infringed upon.



European Union Silence

A Commission official said, however, that the ACP should use European

rules on intellectual property as a 'source of inspiration,' in particular

to prevent fraud. 'We have to face the reality that poor people are often

confronted with fake medicines,' the official added. 'This is certainly

the case in Africa.'

The humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has called on

the EU to support countries that have decided to issue compulsory licenses

to overrule drug patents.

Paul Cawthorne, MSF's head of mission in Thailand, said 'it is of

considerable concern that the European Union has been silent' in the

international dispute that followed the Thai government's decision to

issue a compulsory license for the AIDS treatment efavirenz in November

2006. At $468 per patient per year, the price charged by Merck, the drug's

patent-holder, was more than twice that of a generic version of the same

medicine, made in India. Yet while the Thai decision was taken on public

health grounds, it was opposed by drug firms and by the US government.

'In Thailand, I saw men, women and children dying because they could not

have access to medicines at prices MSF or the Thai government could

afford,' said Cawthorne, adding that the issuing of compulsory licenses

had led to an 'impressive scaling up of treatment'.

But Jon Pender, director of government affairs with GlaxoSmithKline,

claimed it is 'misleading and counter-productive to focus on intellectual

property protection as a significant barrier to access to medicines in

developing countries,' arguing that rampant poverty and inadequate

healthcare systems are bigger problems. More than 95 percent of all drugs

on the 'essential medicines list' compiled by the World Health

Organization (WHO) are not covered by patents, he noted. 'And yet the WHO

says that one-third of the world's population do not have regular access

to these drugs ,in parts of Africa and Asia, this rises to two-thirds.'

Italian Liberal MEP Gianluca Susta complained that 'not a single member of

the WTO has yet decided to use the system agreed in 2003 to import cheap

life-saving medicines.' This, he said, 'could mean that the decision does

not address in a satisfactory way the problems faced by developing

countries in accessing medicines at affordable prices.'

Greg Perry, director-general of the European Generic Medicines

Association, complained that the 2003 decision is 'only likely to have a

marginal impact.' Companies making generic versions of drugs would not

find it financially rewarding to supply drugs to small countries, even if

they issue compulsory licenses, he said, while recognising that it may be

possible to overcome that difficulty if several governments could issues

licenses jointly.



David Cronin may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch.



Alexandra Heumber

EU Advocacy Liaison Officer

MSF

Access to Essential Medicines Campaign

Rue Dupre, 94. 1090 Brussels

++32 (0) 2 474 75 09 (Dir off)

++ 32 (0) 479 514 900 (Mob)

++ 32 (0) 2 474 75 75 (Fax)

Alexandra.HEUMBER@brussels.msf.org



_______________________________________________

Post message: e-drug@healthnet.org

Subscribe: e-drug-join@healthnet.org

Unsubscribe: e-drug-leave@healthnet.org

Help: e-drug-owner@healthnet.org

Info & archives: http://list.healthnet.org/mailman/listinfo/e-drug

--