[Random-bits] Remarks by James Love on the PK IP3 Award

[James Love]

http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149


Remarks by James Love on the PK IP3 Award

Written by James Love   

This year Public Knowledge included me as one of several recipients for their annual IP3 awards , for someone who has "advanced the public interest in one of the three areas of 'IP' - Intellectual Property, Information Policy and the Internet Protocol."   I was unable to attend the Oct. 11 award ceremony in Washington, D.C., and asked Manon Ress to read these remarks on my behalf.

I am touched to receive this award from PK.  

Some people are aware of our to efforts promote access to medicines in developing countries.  I am today in Montreux Switzerland, meeting with African officials involved in an important negotiation involving public health, innovation and intellectual property rights, at the World Health Organization.  That's why I am unfortunately missing this event.  The WHO is trying to find a way to better reconcile the need for innovation and access, and debating proposals to create new institutions to support this, such as patent pools to manage patents on essential medicines, a treaty on R&D, and the introduction of new mechanisms to stimulate investments in R&D, that do not depend upon high drug prices.

Others are aware of our work to reform WIPO, the specialized UN agency that is responsible for intellectual property.  I am pleased to note that in the past year, WIPO's efforts to create new treaties on broadcasting and substantive patent law have been stopped, and what is going forward is a positive agenda -- the WIPO development agenda.  The WIPO development agenda is an enormous change for WIPO, one that recognizes the importance of the public domain and the need to protect consumer interests.

In every successful campaign, there is a deep collaboration with many NGOs (including of course PK), sympathetic government negotiators, businesses, academics and individuals.   

I will close by mentioning our newest campaign, the one that we are now focusing on the most.  It is insanely ambitious.   It faces enormous opposition.   If successful, it will improve the lives of millions of persons.

We want to end of all monopolies for medicines.  Rather than link R&D incentives to monopolies, and high drug prices, a system of prizes would reward successful drug developers.   A great deal of work has been done on this idea, involving many economists, health care experts and others.  

The WHO is now considering the role of prizes to stimulate R&D for neglected diseases, as part of the November IGWG negotiations.

Next week Senator Sanders will introduce a bill in the Senate that will propose a fund of $80 billion per year to reward successful drug developers with large cash prizes, linked to the impact of new inventions on health care outcomes.   The Sanders prize fund bill would eliminate all monopolies on prescription drugs.  Every drug would be a generic.  They would be cheap, for everyone.   It would represent a huge change in the business model for drug development -- as large as the change in the business model for network services that we call the Internet.     This is our next project.   

Thank you.  

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James Love, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
http://www.keionline.org, mailto:james.love@keionline.org
voice +1.202.332.2670, fax +1.202.332.2673, mobile +1.202.361.3040