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TIP welcomes UNITAID medicines patent pool decision
10 July 2008
The Innovation Partnership (TIP) welcomes the decision by the Executive Board of UNITAID, an international organization providing accessible, high quality drugs and diagnostics for developing countries, to take concrete steps toward creating a patent pool* for the provision of new HIV/AIDS medicines for developing countries. TIP, an independent, non-profit consultancy specialized in the understanding, use and management of intellectual property, prepared the feasibility study that paved the road for the Executive Board’s decision. The Executive Board has called on a task force of technical experts to assist it in setting up the pool. The composition of this task force has yet to be determined.
Kent Nnadozie, a TIP consultant and Director of the Southern Environmental and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, an independent scientific research organisation in Kenya, stated: "A medicines patent pool has the potential to unlock the production of needed formulations of HIV/AIDS drugs for children and adults in developing countries. It shows respect to developing world companies while providing the medicines that we need.”
TIP President, Professor Richard Gold of McGill University, lead author of the study and a member of the UNITAID Expert Group that continues to advise the Executive Board stated: “This is a major step toward overcoming old fights about HIV/AIDS and patents. UNITAID is signaling the need the need to include both NGOs and industry in a solution that grows increasingly urgent. The creation of a task force of technical experts to construct the building blocks of the patent pool is a determinative step to bringing all parties toward a much needed resolution.”
TIP was selected to advise the Executive Board because of its expertise in using intellectual property as a tool to meet essential health, development and social needs. On September 9, 2008, TIP will be releasing a groundbreaking report by the International Group of Experts on Biotechnology and Intellectual Property on how governments, industry, researchers and NGOs can deploy patents to meet these needs. More information is available at www.theinnovationpartnership.org.
* A patent pool is a collection of patents held by companies, universities and government institutions related to the manufacture of, in this case, HIV/AIDS medicines that are made available on standard terms to those wishing to manufacture and distribute them in developing countries. The patent holders receive royalties and an independent authority manages licenses, collects and distributes royalties and ensures the quality of the medicines produced through the pool.