CONTROVERSIAL proposals to make cheap drugs available to the world鈥檚 poorest countries have been backed by the British government. The government also accepts that poor countries get a raw deal from the international patent system, and should be encouraged to set up patent systems to suit their own economic circumstances.
The package of 50 or so radical recommendations unveiled last year (快猫短视频, 21 September 2002, p 8) came from the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, an independent panel set up by the Britain鈥檚 Department for International Development. Last week, the department accepted the commission鈥檚 proposals almost in full, increasing the pressure on other governments, including the US, to do likewise.
Most controversially, Britain backs the commission鈥檚 argument that a two-tier system of drug pricing should operate to give poor countries access to cheaper drugs. This is unlikely to please the US administration or drug industry, which favours donation instead. John Barton, the legal expert at Stanford University who chaired the commission, says differential pricing is unavoidable, though he has some sympathy with the US position.
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Unlike in Europe, where most drugs are subsidised, people in the US pay most of their own drug costs and so would question the fairness of paying more than people elsewhere, Barton says. And the industry fears cheaper drugs would not reach patients but be illegally re-exported.
The commission also argued that poorer countries will lose out if they are forced to comply with TRIPS, the worldwide Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, by 2006. Because they have so few inventors themselves poor nations will not benefit from any patent system that prevents them copying the inventions of richer countries. They will simply end up paying higher prices for drugs, seeds and computers.
The British government now backs the commission鈥檚 argument that because they have so little to gain, poorer countries should be granted a decade longer to introduce the laws, and that countries should exploit the 鈥渇lexibilities鈥� within TRIPS to adapt the laws to their needs.
鈥淚t is explicit recognition that intellectual property rights have not worked in favour of developing countries in the past,鈥� says Sandy Thomas, director of Britain鈥檚 Nuffield Council on Bioethics and a member of the commission. 鈥淚t would now be most encouraging to see similar responses from the US government to our report.鈥�
The British government also backs the commission鈥檚 plea for traditional knowledge such as folk medicine to count as 鈥減rior art鈥漣n patent applications. It says it will raise this issue with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva.
Yo Tagaki, senior strategic director at the WIPO, said that about 50 of the poorest countries had already been given until 2016 to set up patent systems. He says that WIPO backs the right of countries to customise patent systems.