[Ip-health] Business Line: Drug patent pool proposal gets a push

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/06/25/stories/2009062552380100.htm

Drug patent pool proposal gets a push

More accessibility

The pool seeks to expand access to medicines, but details on who will
operate it or the royalty amount are being worked out.

P. T. Jyothi Datta

Mumbai, June 24

Concerned over the changing intellectual property (IP) environment,
where medicines are getting patented across the world, UNITAID had
proposed a =93patent pool=94 to make drugs more accessible.

And close to a year after getting the green signal to create the
patent pool, UNITAID representatives met Indian generic drug-makers
and researchers, among other stakeholders, to take on board concerns
that need to be addressed when an =91implementable plan=92 is put in place
later this year, Ms Ellen =92t Hoen, UNITAID=92s Senior Advisor IP and
Medicines, told Business Line.

The United Nations-supported UNITAID is an international drug purchase
facility.

Drug-makers pre-qualified with the World Health Organisation,
including Aurobindo, Actavis, Cipla, Emcure, Hetero, Ranbaxy, Matrix
and Strides, participated in the meeting, she said. =93Indian generic
manufacturers are likely to be licencees of the pool,=94 she observed.

Indian drug companies have been suppliers of inexpensive medicines,
particularly in the AIDS segment, to several countries. About 90 per
cent of people in developing countries accessing anti-AIDS medicines
take generic drugs largely from India.

But the product patent regime, since 2005, changed all that. New
medicines are patentable and so out of reach for generic drug-makers,
affecting their ability to provide affordable treatment, she observed.

The proposed medicines patent pool involves voluntary participation of
patent-holders, be it big drug-makers or universities. Depending on
the medical need, generic drug companies would be allowed to access
the patent of a particular medicine, on the payment of a royalty to
the patent-holder.

The pool seeks to expand access to medicines, but the details on who
will operate it and the royalty amount are being worked out.

The pool plans to start with HIV/AIDS drugs and on its success expand
to diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, she said.



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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997