Latha Jishnu: From airline tickets to patent pools

[Metropolitanjury]

Some extraordinary initiatives have been launched in recent times to ensure that the poorest of the world have access to medicines to fight pandemics and life-threatening diseases. One such is UNITAID, an international drug purchase facility that brings together 27 countries to help fight three killer diseases: HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The project was started by France, Brazil, Chile, Norway and the UK and its members are mostly African countries which are the worst victims of these afflictions.

Set up on September 19, 2006, to ensure a stable source of funding, the organisation has taken on board the Gates Foundation and South Korea, and is hoping to extend its reach. India is not part of this initiative although the UNITAID spokeswoman tells me that it is "one of the target countries for membership".

UNITAID has been innovative from the start. To ensure sustainable and predictable resources, it hit upon the idea of levying a solidarity tax on airline tickets. Not all the member-countries have imposed the levy but almost of them are in the process of doing so, each deciding on what's the most feasible rate, given their level of development and the elasticity of demand. Thus, African countries, for the most part, are imposing the tax only on international flights, or on business/first class tickets.

Early this month, UNITAID took a decision that can only be described as momentous. Addressing the intellectual property aspect of access to medicines, the executive board decided in principle to set up a patent pool — a decision that has delighted health activists but is not exactly making the pharmaceutical industry whoop for joy. A patent pool is a mechanism in which various patents held by different entities, such as companies, universities and research institutions are made available to others for production or further development, such as paediatric or fixed-dose formulations. The patent holders are paid a royalty by those using the patents, with the pool managing the negotiations, the licensing arrangements and payments.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which has been pushing this idea for some time now, says a patent pool can help speed up the availability of generic versions of new medicines long before the 20-year patent term runs out. For the IPR holder, too, there is an incentive: it would widen the market for their products since drugs produced under licence from the patent pool would be exported to designated countries.

A patent pool has become increasingly critical because the prices of new drugs are way too high for patients in poor countries, specially for antiretrovirals (ATRs) to treat AIDS. MSF pays between $613 and $1,022 for the newer WHO-recommended regimen for first-line AIDS treatment — a seven to 12-fold increase compared to older first-line treatments which are now available for just $87 per patient per year. Increased competition would bring down prices and MSF believes that a patent pool is the best way to do it. UNITAID's budget for the current year is just $361 million, far from adequate for the demand it needs to meet.

One reason why activists are pushing hard for patent pools could be the India factor. Earlier, it was an aggressive push by Indian generic companies that dramatically brought down prices of the older ATRs and turned the country into the ‘pharmacy of the world' as Ellen ‘t Hoen, director of policy at MSF's Access Campaign, once described it. That was before the product patent regime was introduced in India in 2005. Today, it's doubtful if India can continue to play such a role. The takeover of Ranbaxy, the country's largest company, by the Japanese Daiichi Sankyo and the trend of domestic companies entering into restrictive licensing agreements with the global pharma giants has virtually signalled the end of the glory days.

A patent pool is also a better alternative to compulsory licensing which is running into tortuous litigation and retaliatory action from the patent holders. But can a patent pool for drugs become effective? Patent pools by themselves are not a new idea, and were used as early as the 19th century to manufacture sewing machines. In the last century, the concept was used to solve both R&D (upstream) and access (downstream) problems in the manufacturing, metallurgical, paper, electrical, and chemical industries.

Today patent pools are a favoured system in technology sectors that require common standards, such as the MPEG-2, DVD-video, DVD-ROM and radio.

Medicines, though, are trickier terrain. What it requires is more imaginative management. UNITAID may be able to pull it off with some luck and lots of hard work. It is first setting up a task force that will formulate an operational plan for creating the patent pool. It is already looking for the right members for this task force — experts in patent law, legal and business risks, economic analysis, public health and medicines — and is hopeful getting it started in a month's time. They have a delicate and onerous task before them. Millions of people are waiting hopefully at the patent poolside.

By Ms.Bobby Aanand, Metropolitan Jury.

[john111]

hi this is rock:A patent pool is also a better alternative to compulsory licensing which is running into tortuous litigation and retaliatory action from the patent holders. But can a patent pool for drugs become effective? Patent pools by themselves are not a new idea, and were used as early as the 19th century to manufacture sewing machines. In the last century, the concept was used to solve both R&D (upstream) and access (downstream) problems in the manufacturing, metallurgical, paper, electrical, and chemical industries.

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