The Hindu Business Line : Drug patent pool proposal gets a push

Concerned over the changing intellectual property (IP) environment, where medicines are getting patented across the world, UNITAID had proposed a “patent pool” to make drugs more accessible.

And close to a year after getting the green signal to create the patent pool, UNITAID representatives met Indian generic drug-makers and researchers, among other stakeholders, to take on board concerns that need to be addressed when an ‘implementable plan’ is put in place later this year, Ms Ellen ’t Hoen, UNITAID’s Senior Advisor IP and Medicines, told Business Line.

The United Nations-supported UNITAID is an international drug purchase facility.

Drug-makers pre-qualified with the World Health Organisation, including Aurobindo, Actavis, Cipla, Emcure, Hetero, Ranbaxy, Matrix and Strides, participated in the meeting, she said. “Indian generic manufacturers are likely to be licencees of the pool,” she observed.

Indian drug companies have been suppliers of inexpensive medicines, particularly in the AIDS segment, to several countries. About 90 per cent of people in developing countries accessing anti-AIDS medicines take generic drugs largely from India.

But the product patent regime, since 2005, changed all that. New medicines are patentable and so out of reach for generic drug-makers, affecting their ability to provide affordable treatment, she observed.

The proposed medicines patent pool involves voluntary participation of patent-holders, be it big drug-makers or universities. Depending on the medical need, generic drug companies would be allowed to access the patent of a particular medicine, on the payment of a royalty to the patent-holder.

The pool seeks to expand access to medicines, but the details on who will operate it and the royalty amount are being worked out.

The pool plans to start with HIV/AIDS drugs and on its success expand to diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, she said.

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