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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16498

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: news

Hoen E
The need for HIV patent pools is urgent
The Guardian 2009 Sep 15
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/sep/15/unitaid-aids-patent-pool


Full text:

Unitaid welcomes GlaxoSmithKline’s renewed interest in the Unitaid patent
pool initiative for HIV and AIDS medicines and its openness to taking a
flexible
approach to managing intellectual property (Letters, 10 September); and
GlaxoSmithKline urged to pool its patents on HIV drugs, 7 September).
Wherever multiple patents owned by different companies are required to make
a product, patent pools may offer a useful solution. Pills that combine
three medicines into one tablet to treat HIV and AIDS are a good example of
such products.

The World Health Organisation recommends the use of such pills because they
make it easier for patients to take their treatment and reduces the risk
that viral resistance will render the drugs useless. However, patents from
two to three different companies are usually required, meaning that
single-company initiatives will not do the trick. The Unitaid pool will
facilitate the development of combination pills and children’s formulations
of HIV and AIDS medicines for use in developing countries, based on
voluntary
patent contributions from pharmaceutical companies. Those companies will
receive royalty payments for doing so. The pool will also enable robust
competition among drug producers to ensure that international resources to
fight AIDS, currently under severe strain, are spent as efficiently as
possible.

The situation is urgent. An estimated 6 million people needing access to
AIDS treatment, including hundreds of thousands of children, still do not
receive it. This number will only grow in the years to come. We ask GSK and
other AIDS drug patent-owners to work with us to make this initiative a
success.

 

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