Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18726

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Publication type: news

Jack A
US research funder licenses HIV patent
The Finanical Times 2010 Oct 1
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ddb559e-ccaa-11df-a1eb-00144feab49a.html

Full text:

The largest US funder of medical research has licensed the patent
rights on an HIV medicine it helped develop to an international
agency, a move designed to make treatments more widely available and
affordable in the developing world.

The National Institutes of Health agreed to place the intellectual
property rights on the drug darunavir into the UN-backed patent pool,
increasing pressure on pharmaceutical companies to do the same.

The decision is a boost to the pool, championed by Unitaid, the French-
led health funding body supported by government donations and a levy
on airline fares, and designed to overcome blockages in drug
development and distribution which advocates argue are created by
patent restrictions.

The pool, formally created as a Swiss foundation earlier this year,
will allow any generic drug company to produce cheap versions of
medicines first developed by other companies, in exchange for a
standard 5 per cent royalty.

The aim of the patent pool is to ease negotiations on drugs protected
by patents and stimulate the creation at low cost of both new
combinations of drugs required for HIV treatment, and new formulations
such as versions easier for children to take or suitable for use in
hot and humid climates.

While few pharmaceutical companies have openly criticised the patent
pool, many have preferred to launch their in-house programmes to
develop and improve the affordability of drugs for the poor.

They are particularly reluctant to license their rights via the patent
pool in middle-income countries, the markets in which their generic
rivals argue are essential in order to make low-cost production viable.

Non-governmental groups including Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam,
which have lobbied intensively for the pool, are concerned about the
rising cost of a new generation of HIV patent-protected medicines as
older and cheaper drugs become less effective.

New trade rules have enforced stricter patent standards in India –
traditionally the home of low-cost generic manufacturers of HIV drugs
– while the economic slowdown has threatened funding for an expansion
in treatment. Figures released this week suggest two-thirds of an
estimated 14m people in developing countries who need life-saving
drugs are not receiving them.

The National Institutes of Health provides royalty-free rights on
duranavir to other organisations and companies including Tibotec, a
subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which would also have to license its
patents on the drug if the patent pool is to make it available to
generic producers.