New patent pool to aid poor access drugs

A fight for equal access to medicine by the government in imposing compulsory licensing on costly patented drugs last year has led to the establishment of a new principle in intellectual property rights (IPRs) that puts patients before profit.

Late last week, Unitaid, an affiliate of the World Health Organisation (WHO), announced a move to approve a principle to establish a "patent pool" for medicine.

The initiative aims to allow patients in low and middle-income segments to obtain affordable drugs.

The decision was warmly welcomed by Thai and global activists fighting for the cause.

"Unitaid has shown great vision and understanding of what needs to be done - this could potentially have a big impact, both for access and medical innovation", said Ellen 't Hoen, director of policy at Medicines Sans Frontières' access campaign.

Patent pools are part of the WHO's recently adopted global strategy on public health, innovation and intellectual property to increase access to drugs.

It is a mechanism where a number of patents held by different entities, such as companies, universities or research institutes, are made available to others for production or further development - for example, paediatric formulations or fixed-dose formulations.

 The patent holders receive royalties that are paid by those who use the patents. The pool manages the licences, the negotiations with patent holders and the receipt and payment of royalties.

 "We can say this was a fruit of Thailand's hard struggle to enable the country to access cheap generic versions of expensive patented medicines," said Nimitr Thien-udom, manager of AIDS Access, a non-governmental body.

Nimitr said the attempt of Thailand in exercising its rights to make cheap generic drugs under the flexibility allowed by the World Trade Organisation's regulation on intellectual property rights, widely known as TRIPS, revealed the existing intellectual property system contains barriers to poor people worldwide.

The Thai government's imposing compulsory licensing urged the world that it was time to establish a new way to use IPRs.

Before the move to form a patent pool, the WHO's inter-government working group on public health, innovation and intellectual property had discussed the possibility of expanding the pool.

However, there are limitations as the success of the idea depends on patent holders, many of whom are drug firms and the firms' researchers.

"Whether this works or not now depends on the willingness

of patent holders to share, in exchange for royalties, the relevant patent rights in the pool," said Hoen.

It is also unclear whether non-member countries of Unitaid may gain from the pool.

A senior official at the Department of Intellectual Property 's biotech and phar-maceutical products division said he had heard about the pool but did not yet know how it would work.

"I'm not sure how it helps us gain better access to drugs. We have to wait and see," he said.

Unitaid's executive board will meet in November to make a final decision on establishing the pool. If approved, the step towards making the pool operational may be started early next year.