[Ip-health] Ip Watch: WHO Asserts Global IP And Health Strategy Progressing But Offers Few Details

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=3D1241

Intellectual Property Watch
25 September 2008
WHO Asserts Global IP And Health Strategy Progressing But Offers Few
Details

By Kaitlin Mara
Work is ongoing within the World Health Organization on a member-
mandated global strategy on public health, innovation and intellectual
property, a WHO official said Tuesday. But little information about
that work has been forthcoming since the strategy was approved in May.

The =93silence of the WHO doesn=92t mean we haven=92t been doing work,=94 s=
aid
Malebona Precious Matsoso, who directs the WHO Department of Technical
Cooperation for Essential Medicines, speaking at an informal seminar
hosted by IQsensato on 23 September. =93We are cautious; we cannot
communicate things that have not been formally recognised.=94

Intended to be an informal discussion between different interested
stakeholders, all event participants spoke for themselves and not for
their governments or institutions.

The event brought together speakers from the WHO, governments, and non-
governmental organisations to discuss the global strategy, which puts
into action years of work at the WHO on issues such as neglected,
under-researched diseases disproportionately affecting the poor (IPW,
WHO, May 2008).

Matsoso compared the strategy to the Development Agenda at the World
Intellectual Property Organization, saying it would inform many
different programmes at WHO. WIPO last year passed a 45-point plan -
currently being implemented - for ensuring developing country needs
are met through the organisation=92s activities.

But much work lies ahead on key decisions contained in the global
strategy and plan of action. This includes assessing priority needs of
developing countries in medical research and development, improving
developing country capacity for R&D, and implementing alternative
funding strategies to stimulate R&D.

Matsoso said that the WHO had =93consciously identified those partners
we think need to work with us=94 and that the organisation had had
several meetings with different stakeholders.

She later explained that many of these stakeholders were researchers,
often in developing countries, as well as public health associations,
doctors and distributors of medicines. These are people, she said,
whose day-to-day work will be affected by WHO decisions but who may
not understand the implications of those decisions. They often =93come
back to us saying they need their own assemblies to assess=94 the
document, she added.

Matsoso also said the WHO is working on a =93matrix=94 detailing what
activities mentioned in the global strategy already exist, what
activities need scaling up, and what activities constitute new work,
so that the organisation can decide out how to budget the programmes.
=93We=92re hoping to finalise it soon and share it with you,=94 she said.

The global strategy [pdf] tasks WHO with creating and financing a
=93quick start programme=94 to =93begin immediately to implement the
elements of the global strategy and plan of action=94 falling under its
responsibility.

=93There=92s no time to waste,=94 said Ambassador Tom Mboya Okeyo of Kenya,
who was in the audience, =93we have had many meetings, but for the
billions suffering we need to move away from meetings=94 and =93provide
support for implementation.=94

Keeping the =91Secret=92 in Secretariat

But there has been concern from many sources in Geneva about the
international health agency=92s tight-lipped policy on providing details
or specifics on progress in the four months since the May World Health
Assembly accepted the strategy.

Of particular concern to many civil society groups is the creation of
an expert working group to =93examine current financing and coordination
of research and development, as well as proposals for new and
innovative sources of financing to stimulate research and development.=94

Nicoletta Dentico, an advisor to IQsensato, said it is =93important to
know the names of the people=94 in the working group, and how they =93have
been consulted, summoned, connected.=94

The global strategy called the establishment of the working group
=93urgent=94 and Elil Renganathan, executive secretary of WHO=92s
Secretariat on Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property, had
expressed to Intellectual Property Watch in May the hope that the
group would be operating within 2 to 3 months.

But the WHO has kept mum on the status of the working group. Matsoso
was only able to say that it was a director general-level decision,
and that WHO Director General Margaret Chan would =93communicate in due
course=94 information about the working group.

But the bulk of the strategy, she said, is a =93member-state-driven
process.=94

Perspectives From Government and Civil Society

Also on hand at the meeting were representatives from several WHO
member governments and civil society groups that work on public health.

Charles Clift of the UK Department for International Development
(DFID), who headed the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights,
Innovation and Public Health, which gave rise to the Intergovernmental
Working Group on Public Health, Innovation, and Intellectual Property
(IGWG) that led to the global strategy, said he had many concerns
about the global strategy which were carried over from concerns about
the IGWG.

Chief among them is that document contains =93too many commitments, that
are too weak and too vague,=94 Clift said. Progress indicators in the
strategy are not measurable. There is a =93missing middle column=94 in the
plan of action, he said: there are actions to take on one side, and
stakeholders on the other, but no detail on what needs to be done to
meet objectives. A critical issue is finding new sustainable financing
mechanisms, he said, which will be the responsibility of the expert
working group and =93one of the most important outcomes=94 of the process.

Peter Beyer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property
(IPI) noted that =93most of the work lies in front of us=94 and that it
was now necessary for stakeholders to =93analyse the recommendations
addressed to them.=94 IPI had a =93high-level meeting on the
implementation of the WHO strategy and action plan=94 earlier on 23
September and plans to identify actions addressed to Switzerland.

Also contributing was Rodrigo Estrela from the Brazilian mission to
the UN, who said the promise of a =93more positive environment=94 for
using flexibilities to rules on trade-related intellectual property
and its strong declaratory statement as to the importance of WHO as a
leader on health issues related to IP were notable achievements. In
addition, Jeanne Tor de Tarl=E9 of the French mission noted that an
added value of the strategy is that it groups normally independent
stakeholders and has them all work in the same direction.

Stephen Matlin from the Global Forum on Health Research noted that it
takes time to build sustainable capacity for health research, and that
WHO should work with the =93many potential partners already working on
aspects of the problem,=94 including those in policy capacity building,
monitoring and resource tracking.

Chikosa Banda, a researcher at the University of Cambridge (UK), said
during a public health study in Malawi he found people =93are very
suspicious of researchers and research,=94 and that research priorities
are inevitably determined by those who fund the programmes, and thus
address =93what people elsewhere think are critical problems.=94 A key
aspect of capacity building would be to get such nations to be able to
address their own health concerns.

Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International said that there needs to
be an instrument to deal with =93global collective action problems=94 in
research, and suggested that prizes could be used to reward those who
give patents to patent pools, to incentivise volunteering.

Kaitlin Mara may be reached at kmara@ip-watch.ch.


Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney
Knowledge Ecology International / Essential Information
www.keionline.org / www.cptech.org
Phone: +1.202.332.2670, x18