Apr 23,
2008
Posted by: Juliano Froehner
Filed Under Brazil, Compulsory licensing, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
This week Brazil’s health ministry declared Gilead’s anti-AIDS drug Tenofovir to be of “public interest” and therefore not deserving of patent protection in Brazil. According to this article, Tenofovir is being used by 30,000 patients in Brazil’s government free anti-AIDS drug program and costs the government $1,387 per patient a year. Brazil will now import a cheaper generic version of this formulation from an Indian company.
This is in effect a pre-emptive strike on compulsory licensing. In this case, Brazil denied the patent to Gilead before granting it. If the government grants a patent to Gilead but then decides it wants to import a cheaper copy of their product that would violate the terms of the patent, the government must then issue a compulsory license, a practice that has become a lightning rod for both drug companies and activists.
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Apr 23,
2008
Posted by: Essential Innovation
Filed Under IGWG, Events, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
| April 29, 2008 |
| 8:00 am | to | 9:30 am |
The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is hosting a panel discussion coinciding with next week’s IGWG meetings in Geneva.
FEATURING:
Tomasz Teluk, Director & Founder, Globalization Institute, Poland
Fellow, Centre for the New Europe
José Miguel Flores Acuña, Attorney, Flores and Associates & Professor of Corporative Law and Technology Transfer, Universidad de Concepción, Chile
James Sykes, Global Program Coordinator, The AIDS Institute, Washington D.C.
EVENT DETAILS:
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
8:00 am to 9:30 am
Geneva, Switzerland
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Apr 22,
2008
Posted by: Juliano Froehner
Filed Under Drug Quality, R&D, Activism, WHO, Brazil, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
As the technology transfer and IP advisor to UNIFESP Federal University of São Paulo I was shocked to see this attack on university IP managers. I’ve already commented on Love’s thoughts on a prize for medicine here as have others in many forums.
If governments want to add additional stimulants to the R&D process by offering prizes for specific ideas, then I know of very few companies that would turn down the extra incentives. If, however, this is not an idea meant to complement the current system of intellectual property that stimulates innovation but rather a replacement, then the prize system again is a sure-loser for innovation and a death sentence for patients.
Brazil’s innovators are not interested in replacing patents with prizes. Public funding for such research has never been able to match capital markets. It should not shock Love that other people who actually contribute to the development of medicine also disagree with him. The claim that university researchers in the U.S. cannot be trusted because they happen to agree with drug companies – who in this case are actually on the side of ration and logic – is just silly.
As a patent manager for a university in Brazil, a poor developing country that Mr. Love claims to be interested in helping, I would sign such a letter myself. Patents are a critical incentive to stimulate research and development for medicine, even in developing countries.
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Apr 22,
2008
Posted by: Essential Innovation
Filed Under Pro-Innovation News, Drug Quality, News & Events, WHO, Compulsory licensing, Thailand, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Original Article Author: Barun Mitra
Original Article Date: April 21, 2008
Originating Site and Article Link: The Gazette (Montreal)
Thailand’s health minister recently announced that the nation’s state-run drug manufacturer, the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, would continue to violate the patents on four key cancer drugs. Health activists around the world applauded the move, apparently believing that intellectual property rights are an obstacle to bringing medicine to the world’s poorest and sickest citizens.
But drug patents and drug prices aren’t the main obstacle to Third World patients seeking treatment. The truth is that even if medicine were completely free, most developing nations lack the infrastructure to deliver it effectively. As Kevin De Cock, HIV/AIDS director at the World Health Organization, explained to Reuters last year, “You have health infrastructure that is dilapidated, and supply chains that don’t exist.”
Comment below and read the full article on the originating Web site.
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Apr 22,
2008
Posted by: Juliano Froehner
Filed Under R&D, Drug Quality, WHO | 1 Comment
A colleague in the United States sent me this interesting article from a publication called Fast Company. The article is about the usefulness of innovation prizes, a favorite topic among some in the anti-IP camp pitched outside of the World Health Organization. As a balanced article, it gives the activists space to make their pitch, but ultimately concludes that a prize is little more than a PR campaign. While these contests can deliver feats, characteristic of all winning “inventions” is that none are commercially viable.
Tell that to the patients praying for advancements in therapy. Meanwhile, every successful treatment in use today in the fight against HIV/AIDS was developed under patent protection. Advocates of prizes over patents – an example of a proven model for delivering results to patients – should be ashamed of the zealousness of their advocacy. The result in the innovation game is life or death. This is not the forum for proven failures.
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Apr 17,
2008
Posted by: Essential Innovation
Filed Under Pro-Innovation News, News & Events | Leave a Comment
Original Article Author: Philip Stevens & Paul Howard
Original Article Date: April 17, 2008
Originating Site and Article Link: The American
For years, international activists have tried to argue that patent protection for new drugs is incompatible with global health. They may have finally found a sympathetic ear. Later this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) is convening its Intergovernmental Working Group on Intellectual Property (IGWG) in Geneva to consider “redrawing” global intellectual property rules. This Group intends to undermine patents and increase government’s role in R&D in order to improve the availability of medicines in poorer countries.
But by effectively nationalizing R&D, the WHO risks scaring away those entities in the best position to engage in risky and expensive drug research: big pharmaceutical companies. A better way to boost commercial research on neglected diseases would be to lower research costs and improve the likelihood of private companies’ turning a profit.
Comment below and read the full article on the originating Web site.
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Apr 15,
2008
Posted by: Juliano Froehner
Filed Under Blog, R&D, Drug Quality, Activism, WHO, Brazil | Leave a Comment
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to attend and speak at a patient-focused and patient-run conference on innovation and public health. Over 30 patient representatives from across Latin America travelled to Sao Paulo, Brazil to attend this Patient Conference on Innovation and Public Health. The goal of this meeting – which was jointly hosted by the Alianza Latina, ABRALE and Consumer Advocare Network – was to provide a forum to help inform, engage and secure greater participation from Latin American patient groups in regional and global health discussions. The conference was supported by an unconditional educational grant from PhRMA.
A number of experts (academics and patient representatives from Columbia, Brazil, United States and Canada) were invited to speak at the workshop to help provide a background on topics such as access to medicines, medical innovation, current global discussions on medical innovation, and – last, but not least – the effectiveness of patient engagement and advocacy.
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Apr 12,
2008
Posted by: Essential Innovation
Filed Under Pro-Innovation News, News & Events | Leave a Comment
Original Article Author: Alec van Gelder and Franklin Cudjoe
Original Article Date: April 12, 2008
Originating Site and Article Link: Business Daily, Kenya
Activists have been trying for years to bring down the pharmaceutical industry. Their “patients not patents” campaign has a simplistic appeal but will only make things worse for the poor, as well as distracting attention from the real causes of ill health: poverty and corruption.
Comment below and read the full article on the originating Web site.
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Apr 1,
2008
Posted by: Essential Innovation
Filed Under Events, News & Events | Leave a Comment
In 2000, Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organization designated April 26 as annual World Intellectual Property Day. They chose the date because the Convention originally establishing WIPO entered into force on April 26, 1970.
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Apr 1,
2008
Posted by: Essential Innovation
Filed Under IGWG, Events, News & Events | Leave a Comment
| April 28, 2008 | to | May 3, 2008 |
The Resumed Second Session of the WHO’s Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property meeting will resume April 28, 2008 in Geneva.
“The objective of this meeting will be to discuss the global strategy and plan of action to boost R&D on medical products for diseases that disproportionally affect poor countries.”
To access the WHO Web site, click here.
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