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25th May 2008
By Frances Williams
Members of the World Health Organisation agreed a global strategy at the weekend that opens the way for innovative schemes to promote research into drugs to treat diseases common in poor nations.
Hailing the decision by the WHO’s annual assembly on Saturday, Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said: “This is a major breakthrough for public health that will benefit many millions of people for many years to come.”
The “public health, innovation and intellectual property” strategy encourages governments to support new ways of stimulating research and development into drugs, vaccines and devices for treating diseases neglected by the big pharmaceutical companies because they do not offer a profitable market opportunity.
Such schemes could include prize funds to reward drug development, advance commitments to buy new drugs or vaccines and patent pooling, where patent holders share technology to provide a common platform for further innovation.
However, WHO members still have to agree on key aspects of the action plan accompanying the strategy, including estimated funding needs, sources of finance, and the contribution of new mechanisms to reward innovation. An expert working group will be set up to finalise the plan of action for approval by the 2009 World Health Assembly.
Public health activists broadly welcomed the outcome, the fruit of two years of difficult negotiations. James Love of Knowledge Ecology International said the HO had taken “a big step forward to change the way we think about innovation and access to medicines”.
Tido von Schoen-Angerer of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) called on the expert working group to move forward with “ambitious proposals to change the way essential health R&D is financed, including for example through the creation of a prize fund to boost the development of tuberculosis diagnostics”.
The absence of a simple cheap TB test, at a time when the disease is spreading alarmingly in conjunction with HIV/Aids, is seen as emblematic of the failure of the patent reward system to encourage development of affordable drugs and diagnostics needed in poor countries. The WHO strategy bolsters the organisation’s role in advising countries on intellectual property issues related to public health and envisages future discussion of an R&D treaty setting global research priorities.
