5th April 2006
CRITICS QUESTION VALUE OF WHO COMMISSION REPORT ON INNOVATION, IP AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Discuss this itemShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say
After more than two years of work, the report produced by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) was made public on 1 April. The study examines the relationship between intellectual property (IP), research and development (R&D), and public health, with a particular focus on diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries.
Disagreements among the commission’s ten members, who included representatives from industry, government, and academia, delayed the publication of the report, originally scheduled for January of this year (see also , BRIDGES Weekly6 February 2006). The final report lists only the issues on which they were ultimately able to agree — with a separate section containing individual commission members’ assorted reservations about its content.
The 228-page report contains a set of 50-odd recommendations, of which only a handful are specific: these include making health authorities part of bilateral trade negotiations, the need for sound competition policy, and the importance of national legislation for countries to be able to use compulsory licensing to produce generic versions of essential drugs. Furthermore, it calls upon the WHO to develop a ‘Global Plan of Action’ to secure enhanced and sustainable funding for the development of health-related products in developing countries, and the promotion of access to them.
While the report explains to some extent why IP protections alone are not sufficient incentive to ensure the satisfaction of certain public health needs in developing countries, critics charge that it fails to provide a more comprehensive analysis of IP’s effects on those needs — and thus, to make more systemic policy recommendations. Others say that the study will encourage more concrete discussions on the topic.
The report will be submitted to the WHO Executive Board, along with a related draft resolution, on 28 April.
One response to “CRITICS QUESTION VALUE OF WHO COMMISSION REPORT ON INNOVATION, IP AND PUBLIC HEALTH”
Add a comment
Enter your details and a comment below, then click Submit Comment. We’ll review and publish the best comments.
[...] recent report by the Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH; see BRIDGES Weekly, 5 April 2006). It established an intergovernmental working group to negotiate the action plan on [...]