[Ip-health] Reuters: Time runs out on talks on drugs for poor countries

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7067198

Time runs out on talks on drugs for poor countries

     * Reuters
     * Saturday November 10 200

  GENEVA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Talks between public health officials and
the drug industry on a deal to ensure that people in poor countries
can receive medicines at affordable prices ended inconclusively on
Saturday.

The Geneva meeting, sponsored by the United Nations' World Health
Organisation, was suspended after delegates exhausted the six days
allotted for negotiations and agreed to meet again in late April and
conclude a deal in May.

"This is a difficult negotiation," said James Love, director of
advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International, in a statement.
"Negotiators are creating new global norms and mechanisms to promote
both innovation and access to medical technologies."

The goal of the talks is to produce guidelines that would encourage
research and development of affordable drugs to treat diseases
prevalent in poor countries while respecting intellectual property
rights of big pharmaceutical firms.

The industry argues it needs strong revenues from drug sales to
finance research and development into new treatments, including for
diseases prevalent in developing countries.

The pharmaceutical industry has condemned the WHO draft plan and
richer countries home to much of the global drug industry remain cool
to the plan.

But health advocates, including aid agency Doctors Without Borders, or
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), say that development of drugs for poor
countries is lacking.

MSF said the talks, staged by the Intergovernmental Working Group for
Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG), saw some
encouraging progress.

"Countries are pushing WHO to be more active in resolving the access
to medicines crisis, and take a pro-health approach to intellectual
property," said MSF's Michel Lotrowska in a statement at the close of
the talks.

"Governments are taking steps to address the fundamental reasons why
investment into innovation for diseases of the poor is lacking," he
said.

The pharmaceutical industry, represented by the International
Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA),
said it was disappointed by the lack of a deal and called for more
public funds to encourage drug development. (Reporting by Thomas
Atkins; Editing by Giles Elgood)