[Ip-health] IP-Watch: Kenya works to identify IP rights in its med. research

[Sarah Rimmington]

Intellectual Property Watch

*19 October 2007*


      Kenya Works To Identify IP Rights In Its Medical Research

By Tatum Anderson for /Intellectual Property Watch/
NAIROBI - One of Kenya=92s most prestigious research institutions, Kenya
Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), has begun an extensive intellectual
property audit to try and identify any discoveries that should be
protected. The audit comes as the government is finishing work on a new
framework on traditional knowledge and IP.

KEMRI=92s audit is an attempt to ensure that the commercial benefits of
any drugs or active ingredients that are eventually developed from
research at the institute are shared appropriately amongst all who were
involved.

=93There is a lot of intellectual property lying in the labs,=94 said Dr
Jennifer Akinyi Orwa, principal research officer at KEMRI, who has been
involved in the audit since it began a few months ago.

A key element of the institute-wide audit will be drawing up agreements
with traditional healers. They are crucial to the institute because they
provide the raw materials and knowledge on traditional plants that are
being researched within its labs. Scientists hope to develop drugs from
these natural products. Drugs such as those for chemotherapy and
antibiotics have been developed in this way for decades.

The agreements will serve to ensure healers are more fully involved in
the process to develop medicines. =93Many traditional healers feel that
scientists are stealing their research and not involving them and not
informing them of the results obtained,=94 she said.

As a result, KEMRI is drafting agreements for traditional healers
pledging to keep them fully informed of any progress made at each stage
of the research process, especially if their material is promising, sent
to another institution for further tests and becomes a candidate for a
drug.

Already the institute holds weekly open mornings at one of its sites in
the capital Nairobi where traditional healers can bring raw materials
and discuss research being carried out.

Eventually, the plan is to come up with a proper quantitative
benefit-sharing agreement that states exactly how much healers and their
communities receive as a proportion of drugs that eventually sold
commercially. KEMRI=92s Orwa said no precise numbers have been proposed
yet, because this situation has yet to arise, but the idea is to
subtract the costs of research and development from - and decide how to
divide - the rest.

New Framework on Traditional Medicine and IP

KEMRI is one of several institutions in Kenya that are reviewing their
policy towards intellectual property.

Concurrently, several ministries within the government are putting the
finishing touches to a new national framework on traditional medicine
and its approach to intellectual property.

The policy, which is currently with the Kenyan Attorney General=92s
office, has already been broadly consulted on around Kenya, with advice
from traditional healers and scientists to conservationists.

The policy, which will eventually become law, broadly lays out a
strategy to conserve traditional plants, which often are over-harvested
on the wild, establish the safety and efficacy of traditional remedies,
and commercialise remedies on the world market. However, it also
addresses intellectual property, primarily to ensure that traditional
healers are assured any commercial benefits of drugs that are eventually
sold by law.

Specifically, the policy states that before scientists can start work,
agreements must be signed so that benefits are shared if drugs are
developed. Many details still have to be hammered out, such as whether a
single healer with knowledge on how to pick plants and create a remedy
should benefit, or an entire community that uses that plant and how much
they stand to earn.

=93The existing IP rights mechanism doesn=92t contain enough provisions to
protect traditional medicine.=94 said Dr Jack Githae, a traditional healer
from Central Kenya, who has contributed to the consultation. =93We need to
develop an African solution. Benefit sharing is very important. It is a
communal resource and I think it should be approached like that.=94

KEMRI says that although it is developing its own agreements, when a law
is passed, it will ensure its internal policy reflects the new rules.

But benefit sharing is not as simple as ensuring traditional healers and
communities benefit, said Dr Hashim Warsama Ghalib of the UN=92s Tropical
Disease Research group at the World Health Organization, which funds
drug discovery research from natural products in Africa - including KEMRI.

There are many more people involved in the discovery of a drug -
particularly in Africa - from healers, to several different types of
scientists including phytochemists and clinicians. As a result, the
process to decide how intellectual property is shared down the chain
becomes incredibly complex.

=93The chain of development of natural products is a long chain and
includes a lot of steps, =93he said.

The chain is particularly long in Africa because of chronic
under-funding for research. Many scientists often do not have access to
the right equipment or expertise to carry out different elements of
research and are often required to hand over their discoveries to other
institutions with the correct tools.

The most promising compounds are typically handed over to pharmaceutical
companies in the west to develop into drugs that can be manufactured at
large scale, for instance.

Uncertainties over intellectual property means often many potential
drugs never get off the starting blocks, said Ghalib. Scientists often
guard their hard work and do not want to share it if they are not
convinced they will be adequately rewarded.

As a result, KEMRI=92s audit will attempt to ensure that work is
adequately protected even if it is handed over to another institution.
To do that KEMRI plans to examine all the agreements that have been made
with other institutions and pharmaceutical companies, both in Kenya and
abroad, on sharing research.

=93We will look at them as there are probably gaps,=94 said Orwa. =93We hav=
e
been using agreements that come from abroad but now we are in the
process of developing our own contracts and agreements.=94
/
Tatum Anderson may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch./

--
Sarah Rimmington
Attorney
Essential Action, Access to Medicines Project
Washington, DC
Tel: (202) 387-8030
Cell: (202) 422-2687
www.essentialaction.org/access/