The World Health Organization’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property will now carry on discussions next year ahead of the World Health Assembly in May 2008, during which the group is due to present a global strategy and plan of action.
At the start of the working group’s six-day meeting last week, WHO director-general Margaret Chan had urged health officials to conclude a global agreement to ensure better access to drugs in the developing world.
“The challenge is to work on multiple fronts: to meet the immediate need for equitable access to quality, affordable medicines, while also, at the same time, working to stimulate innovation,” Chan told the meeting.
Officials from 140 countries discussed a draft global strategy and plan of action prepared by the WHO’s secretariat as well as considering two proposals put forward by non-governmental organizations and developing countries for overhauling the way that drugs are developed.
The first would require drugs companies to combine their IP rights in existing drugs, while the second would set up a prize fund to encourage pharmaceutical companies to invest in research for treating diseases that are far more prevalent in developing countries than in richer ones.
James Love of Knowledge Ecology International, which has championed the concept of a prize fund, said in a statement on Saturday: “This is a difficult negotiation. The topics are hard, and delegates are being asked to do something new. Negotiators are creating new global norms and mechanisms to promote both innovation and access to medical technologies. For many years we have had an access to medicines movement. Today we have an ‘innovation plus access’, or ‘i+a’ movement. This is the first real i+a negotiation.”
“The progress was slow, but very positive. The pharmaceutical industry tried to block all of the new ideas, including most importantly, future discussions on a medical R&D treaty. But discussions on everything, including an R&D treaty, are moving forward. This has been a very strong week for the i+a advocates,” he added.
Other proposals debated by the working group in Geneva included providing more support for companies that manufacture and distribute generic versions of drugs, and encouraging poor countries to issue compulsory licences for medicines.
The next round of talks is set to take place from April 28 to May 3 next year.
