While the recent Report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) stressed the need for World Health Organization (WHO) intervention in monitoring the impact of intellectual property rights (IPR) on drugs development, its availability and affordability from a public health perspective, a Civil Society Report on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Health has wanted WHO to keep away from IPR issues. The report, claimed as a response from a global coalition of 16 concerned civil society groups to the CIPIH report, asks WHO to 'desist from this activity and refocus its activities on concerns that are both more pressing and for which it has - at least ostensibly - greater expertise'.
"Given its (WHO's) lamentable track record in fulfilling the aims of its constitution, it is unclear why the WHO is dedicating scarce resources to considering issues that are peripheral to its remit, such as intellectual property - especially when there are other UN forum, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that possess a specific mandate to deal with IP issues," the civil society report has stated.
The international health activists, who have hailed the CIPIH report as a vindication of their stand, have rubbished the "civil society" report as an industry sponsored one. Interestingly, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) is among the three 'concerned civil society groups' from India that is part of the 16 member coalition. The other two are Action Research and Community Health and Liberty Institute.
The CIPIH had asked WHO to develop a Global Plan of Action to secure enhanced and sustainable funding for developing and making accessible products to address diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries. It had also stated that WHO should continue to monitor, from a public health perspective, the impact of intellectual property rights, and other factors on the development of new products as well as access to medicines and other health care products in developing countries.
Meanwhile, the 'civil society' report echoes the persistent stand of the multinational pharmaceutical companies that stronger IPR regime and introduction of data exclusivity clauses by the developing countries can only help trigger drug R&D for diseases of the third world.
"The governments must create environments that are conducive to the fragile process of innovation. This is the only way to bolster the pipeline of new drugs in a sustainable manner. The governments of poor countries must, as a priority, remove barriers to the provision of healthcare, especially taxes, tariffs and regulatory barriers that currently prevent the poor from obtaining essential medicines. The governments of poor countries should improve the institutional environment more generally, so that people are able to generate wealth and thereby ensure that healthcare systems become self-sustaining - and provide a strong demand driver for the development of new drugs," it said.
The 'civil society groups' called for clearly defined, readily enforceable and transferable property rights, rule of law, backed by an independent and impartial judiciary and an IP system that meets at least minimum standards, such as those set in the TRIPS Agreement. Their report stated that the higher-income countries should provide a regulatory and tax environment that nurtures public private partnerships (PPPs) and pure private sector development of drugs for the diseases of poverty. Fast-track approval for drugs for diseases of poverty, tax-breaks for research into such drugs and patent extensions to a range of drugs in home markets when companies develop an effective drug for a poverty disease are some of the suggestions made by them.