PHA-Exchange> World Health Assembly puts health over profit

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> World Health Assembly puts health over profit
> 
> The World Health Assembly, the policy-framing body
> that gives guidance to WHO on the views of member
> states and sets global health policy, has voted to
> support a resolution affirming that public health
> interests should remain paramount when framing policy
> on pharmaceuticals. 
> 
> The implications of the resolution will alarm United
> States trade representatives, who have been fighting a
> rearguard action in the World Trade Organisation to
> defend the rights of pharmaceutical patent holders
> against compulsory licensing on public health grounds.
> At the November 2001 Doha WTO summit, it was agreed
> that the TRIPS agreement on intellectual property "can
> and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner
> supportive of WTO members' right to protect public
> health and, in particular, to promote access to
> medicines for all." 
> 
> A major sticking point at Doha was the question of
> whether generic producers in countries like India
> should be allowed to export to countries with little
> or no manufacturing capacity on public health grounds,
> the so-called Paragraph 6 issue. Developing countries
> were promised a solution to this issue by the end of
> 2002, but it remains unresolved. The US has tried to
> limit the list of diseases that would eligible for
> such an exemption on public health grounds, and even
> though every member of the WTO voted against the US
> proposal, the European Union Trade Representative
> Pascal Lamy has subsequently proposed a similarly
> edited list as a `compromise`. In the meantime,
> compulsory licensing for diseases that everyone agrees
> on - HIV, malaria, TB and a handful of tropical
> diseases - remains blocked. 
> 
> The resolution adopted by the World Health Assembly,
> despite vigorous US opposition to any WHO involvement
> in intellectual property issues, states that: 
> 
> Public health interests are paramount in both
> pharmaceutical and health policies 
> Member states should consider, whenever necessary,
> adapting national legislation in order to use to the
> full the flexibilities contained in TRIPS 
> WHO should support the exchange and transfer of
> technology 
> WHO should produce an analysis of methods by which
> research and development of medicines for the
> developing world can be stimulated and financed, to
> report by January 2005
> The resolution did not instruct WHO to give assistance
> to countries in identifying how to draft laws that
> would allow greater flexibility on TRIPS, and did not
> instruct WHO to intervene wherever necessary in trade
> negotiations that might restrict access to essential
> medicines. 
> 
> However, a recent Medecins sans Frontieres report,
> Drug Patents Under the Spotlight, suggests that much
> work needs to be done to inform developing countries
> of their current options under the existing
> intellectual property regime. Although the TRIPS
> agreement has been portrayed as restrictive, the MSF
> report points out that countries can still decide what
> sort of inventions they will grant patents for. In
> countries without current patent provisions for
> pharmaceuticals, the framing of patent regulations
> could have a huge impact on the price of medicines and
> the ability of countries to issue compulsory licenses.
> 
> 
> The subject of a patent must be new - the key
> flexibility on this issue is whether novelty is
> defined locally or globally. If a novel invention is
> defined globally, the Paris Convention for the
> Protection of Industrial Property gives an inventor 12
> months to file patents worldwide before the novelty of
> an invention is considered to have expired. Patent
> offices could be more strict about applying this
> provision. 
> 
> The inventiveness of the innovation should also be
> assessed - is it impossible for an expert to have
> anticipated this invention? European patent law states
> that "an invention shall be considered as involving an
> inventive step if, having regard to the state of the
> art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the
> art." 
> 
> MSF argues that anyone with a modicum of knowledge
> about HIV treatment could anticipate that a fixed dose
> combination of already known antiretrovirals is
> possible. 
>