The charity Oxfam has criticised proposals from the UK government's think tank on patents for not going far enough to help poor countries bypass patent laws and get the drugs and technology they need to escape poverty.
Although it has cautiously welcomed the first report from the Commission for Intellectual Property Rights (14 September, p 562), Oxfam says that the report's recommendations are meaningless for the many developing countries that do not have the technology to manufacture their own generic drugs.
Dr Mohga Kamal Smith, health policy adviser at Oxfam, said the criticism of the treaty on TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights) is especially welcomed. Although set up to improve developing countries' access to cut price patented drugs, the treaty will have the opposite effect.
“Patents used to cover the process of manufacture rather than the drug, so that when countries such as India developed another way of making the same drug they could make a generic and sell it to other developing countries,” explained Dr Smith. “But TRIPS is making intellectual property less flexible. Countries have to buy a patent licence and have to be able to manufacture the drug to benefit from the scheme—and many countries simply don't have the technology.”
Oxfam is also concerned that differential pricing—whereby a drug is offered at a lower price for developing countries—is totally voluntary. “It is not a comprehensive solution,” said Dr Smith. “Although this has happened for drugs used to treat HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis it is not happening for other diseases. Does this mean we have to make a fuss about every disease that needs treating in developing countries for cheap drugs to be made available?”
Commenting on the report at its launch in Geneva this week Clare Short MP, the Secretary of State for International Development in the United Kingdom, congratulated the commission on a job well done and stressed the need for intellectual property regimes that assist development in poorer countries. If this was to happen national intellectual property systems needed to be integrated into development objectives, she added.
The charity Médecins Sans Frontiàres supports the commission's view that more needs to be done to stimulate research into drugs needed in developing countries that will not yield big profits for Western companies.
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REX FEATURES/JIM WINSLET
Clare Short welcomed report