The Right to Health and Medicines: The Case of Recent Multilateral Negotiations on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property

Abstract

The negotiations of the intergovernmental group known as the 'IGWG', undertaken by the Member States of the WHO, were the result of a deadlock in the World Health Assembly held in 2006 where the Member States of the WHO were unable to reach an agreement on what to do with the 60 recommendations in the report on 'Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights submitted to the Assembly in the same year by a group of experts designated by the Director General of the WHO. The result of these negotiations was the 'Global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property' which was approved by the World Health Assembly in 2008. The intention of the Global Strategy and Plan of Action (GSPOA) which was produced by the IGWG was to substantially reform the pharmaceuticals' research and development system in view of the findings that this system, whose purpose is to produce medicines for diseases which affect the greater part of the world population which lives in developing countries, had failed. The intellectual property rights imposed by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the recent trade agreements could become one of the main obstacles to access to medicines. The GSPOA makes a critical analysis of this reality, and opens the door to searching for new solutions to this problem.

Medicines and Intellectual Property: 10 Years of the WHO Global Strategy

“…The NGOs and non-profit organisations in the public health field played an important role. The role the NGOs have played in promoting access to medicines in the WHO governing bodies is well known and recognised (Velásquez, 2011). Maybe because of the enthusiasm generated by the negotiations, some organisations abandoned their discreet and effective lobbying for an open and visible promotion of certain issues, which did not always help the public health agenda to move forward or to build consensus.…”

Counterproductive contributions to African epidemiology

“…But suppose the American pharmaceutical industry were to carry out research agendas in Africa set by locally situated experts. Or short of that, suppose they conducted their clinical trials in the populations for whom their re-purposed drugs are ostensibly defined as "essential" [102]. This would integrate foreign researchers and other personnel deeply into the product development process.…”

A estratégia global sobre saúde pública, inovação e propriedade intelectual: estabelecimento de uma ordem de prioridade das necessidades de pesquisa e desenvolvimento no Brasil

“…It also recognizes that international intellectual property agreements could contain flexibilities that would facilitate access to pharmaceutical products by developing countries. However, these States face obstacles when using such flexibilities, with emphasis on those with insufficient or no production capacity, which limits the effective use of the compulsory license, in addition to the increase in patents on marginal or trivial advances (sometimes called evergreening patents), that block or delay generic competition (Velásquez, 2011).…”