CPTech Statement on WHA passage of historic resolution on: Public health, innovation, essential health research and intellectual property rights; towards a global strategy and plan of action.
27 May 2006
By James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology, from the WHA in Geneva:
“Today the World Health Organization’s main governing body approved a resolution that will set in motion an ambitious new effort to stimulate R&D in areas of public health priority, with access to new medical inventions.
“The global trade framework will be transformed by this initiative. No longer will countries see trade agreements about intellectual property rights or drug prices as the only mechanism for sustainable funding of R&D, or the only possible outcome of a bilateral or multilateral trade negotiation.
“The negotiators tackled a contentious issue with more grace and better outcomes that many had predicted. The decision to create a new intergovernmental working group that has a mandate to create a global strategy and framework to address the setting of essential health R&D priorities and sustainable funding mechanisms, consistent with access, was bold and action oriented.
“R&D is too important to be left up to one person (Bill Gates), one country (US NIH/CDC) or private investors only. It is also the beginning of a serious discussion of how we can reconcile incentives to innovate with access. Now we need to focus on the working group.
“The deal is not perfect. The resolution unhelpfully focused on ‘diseases’ rather than health care problems, and the European Commission blocked the most explicit references to the need to refashion R&D incentives to ensure access, or to promote more openness in scientific research. But it is an impressive and tangible start. There is much credit to go around, starting with several dedicated public health advocates, most importantly Nicoletta Dentico and Ellen ‘t Hoen, but also many others from the NGO community, public health leaders from Kenya and Brazil, who set their sights high, and provided the leadership that changed minds everywhere, and scientists Tim Hubbard and Sir John Sulston.
“The United States delegation, led by Bill Steiger, provided constructive and positive contributions, as did delegations from many other countries, including the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, Thailand and South Africa. We were disappointed at the hostile attitude of the European Commission, but this too was moderated by the more forward looking delegations from some EU member states.”
FMI…. my Geneva Cell +41.76.413.6584 (till Sunday).
For other NGO views, see:
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/ip-health/2006-May/
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/ip-health/2006-May/009628.html
FMI on WHA negotiations:
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/who/59wha/index.html