Pool medical patents save lives Ellen t Hoen

in 2002 a group of treatment activists

met to discuss the early development of

the airplane the Wright brothers in the

beginning of the last century had for

the first time managed to make one of

those devices fly they also had taken

out numerous patents on essential parts

of the airplane they were not the only

ones that was common practice in the

industry and those who helped patterns

on airplanes were defending them

fiercely ensuing competitors left and

right this actually wasn’t so great for

the development of the aviation industry

and this was at the time that in

particular the US government was

interested in ramping up the production

of military airplanes so there was a bit

of a conflict there the US government

decided to take action and force those

patent holders to make their patents

available to share with others to enable

the production of of airplanes so what

is this got to do with this in 2002

Nelson aroma a Kenyan social scientist

discovered he had HIV and needed access

to treatment he was told that a cure did

not exist AIDS he heard was lethal and

treatment was not offered this was at a

time that treatment actually existed in

rich countries aids had become a chronic

disease people in our countries here in

Europe in North America were living with

HIV healthy lives not so for Nelson he

wasn’t rich enough and not so for his

three-year-old son he discovered a year

later also had HIV Nelson decide

to become a treatment activist and join

up with other groups in 2002 they were

facing a different battle prices for a

rvs the drugs needed to treat HIV cost

about 12,000 per patient per year the

patents on those drugs were held by a

number of western pharmaceutical

companies that were not necessarily

willing to make those patterns available

when you have a patent you can exclude

anyone else from making from from

producing or making low-cost versions

for example available of those of those

medications clearly this led to patent

wars breaking out all over the globe

luckily those patterns did not exist

everywhere there were countries that did

not recognize pharmaceutical product

patterns such as India and Indian

pharmaceutical companies started to

produce so-called generic versions

low-cost copies of antiretroviral

medicines and make them develop

available in the developing world and

within a year the price had come down

from ten thousand dollars per patient

per year to three hundred and fifty

dollars per patient per year and today

that saying triple pill cocktail is

available for sixty dollars per patient

per year and of course that started to

have an enormous effect on the number of

people who could afford access to those

medicines treatment programs became

possible funding became available and

the number of people on antiretroviral

drugs started to increase very rapidly

today eight million people have access

to antiretroviral drugs 34 million are

infected with HIV never has this number

been so high but actually this is good

news because what it means is people

stop dying people who have access to

these drugs stop dying and

something else they also stopped passing

on the virus this is fairly recent

science that has shown that what it

means is we have the tools to break the

back of this epidemic so what’s the

problem well things have changed first

of all the rules have changed today all

countries are obliged to provide patents

for pharmaceuticals that lasts at least

20 years this is as a result of the

intellectual property rules of the World

Trade Organization so what India did is

no longer possible second the practice

of patent holding companies have changed

here you see the patent practices before

the World Trade organization’s rules

before 95 for antiretroviral drugs this

is what you see today and this is in

developing countries so what that means

is unless we do something deliberate and

unless we do something now we will very

soon be faced with another drug price

crisis because new drugs are developed

new drugs go to market but these

medicines are patented in a much wider

range of countries so unless we act

unless we do something today we will

soon be faced with some have termed the

treatment time own it isn’t only the

number of drugs that are patented

there’s something else that can really

scare generic manufacturers away this

shows you a patent landscape this is the

landscape of what medicine so you can

imagine that if you are a generic

company about to decide whether to

invest in the development of this

product unless you know that the

licenses to these patterns are actually

going to be available you will probably

choose to do something else again

deliberate action is needed so surely

if a patent pool could be established to

ramp up the production of military

airplanes we should be able to do

something similar to tackle the hiv/aids

epidemic and we did in 2010 unit 8

established the medicines patent pool

for HIV and this is how it works patent

holders inventors that develop new

medicines patent those inventions but

make those patterns available to the

medicines patent pool the medicines

patent pool then license those out to

ever need access to those patterns that

can be generic manufacturers it can also

be known for profit drug development

agencies for example those manufacturers

can then sell those medicines had much

lower costs to people who need access to

them to treatment programs that need

access to them they pay royalties over

the sales to the patent holder so they

are remunerated for sharing their

intellectual property there is one key

difference with the airplane patent pool

the medicines patent pool is a voluntary

mechanism the airplane patent holders

were not left a choice whether they

licensed their patents or not they were

forced to do so and that is something

that the medicine spaten pool cannot do

it relies on the willingness of

pharmaceutical companies to license

their patents and make them available

for others for others to use today

nelson aroma is healthy he has access to

antiretroviral drugs his son will soon

be 14 years old Nelson is a member of

the expert advisory group of the

medicines patent pool

and he told me not so long ago on we

rely in Kenya and in many other

countries on the medicines patent pool

to make sure that new medicines also

become available to us that new

medicines without delay become available

to us and this is no longer fantasy

already I’ll give you an example in

August of this year the United States

drug agency approved the new for in 18

medication the company gilia that holds

the patents as license license the

intellectual property to the medicines

patent pool the pool is already working

today two months later with generic

manufacturers to make sure that this

product can go to market at low cost

where and when it is needed this is

unprecedented this has never been done

before the rule is about a 10 year delay

for a new product to go to market in

developing countries if at all this has

never been seen before Nelson’s

expectations are very high and quite

rightly so he and his son will need

access to the next generation

antiretrovirals and the next throughout

their lifetime so that he and many

others in Kenya and other countries can

continue to live healthy active lives

now we count on the willingness of drug

companies to make that happen we count

on those companies that understand that

it is in the interest not only an

interest of the global good but also in

their own interest to move from conflict

to collaboration and through the

medicines patent pool they can make that

happen they can also choose not to do

that but they don’t stir go down that

road may end up in a similar situation

the Wright brothers ended up with early

last century facing forcible measures by

government

so they better jump now thank you

you