Compulsory Patent Licensing and Access to Medicines: A Silver Bullet Approach to Public Health?

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Van Anh Le
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Patent Licensing ◽  
Silver Bullet

scholarly journals Public Policies and patents for breast cancer in Brazil, India and Australia

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 287-298
Author(s):  
Áurea Machado de Aragão ◽  
Antônio Martins De Oliveira Júnior
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Cancer Breast ◽  
Incidence And Mortality ◽  
Breast Breast Cancer ◽  
Research Investments

This article illustrates that public policies to facilitate access to medicines, research investments, and self-awareness for breast cancer are the way to change the scenario of breast cancer in Brazil, India and Australia. The motivation was due to the fact that the literature reports breast cancer as a public health problem due to high incidence and mortality rates, whether the country is developed or not. The method adopted was the review study based on the data analysis on public policies and patents for breast cancer in Brazil, India and Australia available in official websites, INPI, Espacenet and Patentscope databases, journals and international newspapers Specialized and physical literature related to the theme. The descriptors used were cancer, breast, breast cancer, breast cancer and Australia, cancer patents, breast cancer and India. The following inclusion criteria used were year and period of publication, availability of the article in full and the intersection between the descriptors. The research concluded that there is an urgent need to prioritize public health with more investment in breast cancer research and awareness programs on the importance of early detection in those countries, primarily in India.

scholarly journals "No Silver Bullet Solution": Cruel Optimism and Canada’s COVID-19 Public Health Messages

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Holmes ◽  
Udo Krautwurst ◽  
Kate Graham ◽  
Victoria Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Affective Response ◽  
Health Messages ◽  
Public Health Messages ◽  
Public Health Discourse ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Health Discourse ◽  
Silver Bullet ◽  
Interaction Balance

Science twines through many of the discussions related to hope for a return to normalcy within public discussions of COVID‑19. The framings of techno-scientific solutions for COVID‑19 are similar to those that are presented to address many societal problems. The messy scientific and regulatory underpinnings of this desired silver bullet rarely make it fully into view. Technoscientific-related hope and its associated affects can operate as a kind of “cruel optimism” (Berlant 2010, 2011). It can be an affective response to return to life as “normal” that is psychologically soothing, even as its enactment may replicate destructive social, political, and economic structures. Hope and technoscience thread throughout the interactions between journalists and health officials in the health press briefings in the first wave of the COVID‑19 pandemic. Technoscientific complexity that challenges the desire to return to normal is rarely brought up in Ontario and Nova Scotia public health briefings. But when it is, health officials in this zone of interaction balance explanations of scientific reality and caution, while attempting to not crush hope for a techno-scientifically mediated return to normal. As such, public health discourse obscures or tempers cruel optimism rather than directly confronting it.

The WTO Medicines Decision: World Pharmaceutical Trade and the Protection of Public Health

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick M. Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Trips Agreement ◽  
Compulsory Licensing ◽  
The World ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Pharmaceutical Trade ◽  
Doha Declaration

On November 14,2001, the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, meeting in Doha, Qatar, adopted the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (Doha Declaration). The declaration affirms that the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights “can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members’ right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all,” and it reaffirms that the Agreement “provide[s] flexibility for this purpose.” The Doha Declaration mandated further negotiations on one important subject, providing in its paragraph 6: “We recognize that WTO Members with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector could face difficulties in making effective use of compulsory licensing under the TRIPS Agreement. We instruct the Council for TRIPS to find an expeditious solution to this problem … .“

scholarly journals COVID-19, IP and access: Will the current system of medical innovation and access to medicines meet global expectations?

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
Olga Gurgula ◽  
Wen H Lee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Current System ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Medical Innovation ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Compulsory Licensing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Innovation Model

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fundamental flaws in the current system of medical innovation and access to medicines, which require urgent attention from the global community. This is prompted by the experience of the past decades, which has proven that this system was ineffective in securing adequate access to medicines for all. The understanding of the deficiencies of the existing system is crucial today, as it may help to design effective approaches for improving access. This article will also consider mechanisms that may be implemented by governments for the protection of public health. These include short-term mechanisms, such as compulsory licensing and government use, as well as the long-term design of a new innovation model, including state-coordinated research of medicines and open innovation. The current system should be reconsidered to ensure the prompt development of COVID-19 therapy accessible to everyone and full preparedness for the pandemics of the future.

Common Health Policy Interests and the Shaping of Global Pharmaceutical Policies

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meri Koivusalo
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Health Priorities ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Pharmaceutical Policies ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Common Interests

In order to achieve more ethical global health outcomes, health policies must be driven by health priorities and should take into account broader health policy requirements, including the needs of specific national health systems. It is thus important to recognize that the division of interests in key policy areas are not necessarily between the priorities of rich and poor countries, but between (1) pharmaceutical industry interests and health policy interests, and (2) national industrial and trade policy interests and public health policies. In this article I will focus on two broad common interests for health policy officials. Both have become important in the context of current global negotiations relating to access to medicines; pandemic influenza; and public health, innovation, and intellectual property rights. These are (1) ensuring access, availability, and the safety of pharmaceuticals, and (2) ensuring that research-and-development efforts respond to public health needs. I argue that these issues are not solely the concern of developing countries because the diminishing national policy space for health in pharmaceutical policies presents a challenge to all governments, including rich ones.

scholarly journals Including public health considerations in trade and investment agreements

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Thow ◽  
A Garde ◽  
M Mabhala ◽  
R Smith ◽  
P Kingston ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Noncommunicable Disease ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Strategic Policy ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Investment Agreements ◽  
Trade And Investment

Abstract There is widespread recognition that trade and investment agreements (TIAs) can affect health services, access to medicines, NCD prevention (particularly related to tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food) and health systems structures. In addition, these binding international economic agreements can constrain the policy space available for innovative, evidence-based health policymaking. Although TIAs can have positive outcomes for employment and economic growth, these benefits are only likely to accrue when governments are pro-active in implementing complementary policies to mitigate impacts on other sectors and to address potential inequalities arising. The aim of this panel session is to examine the ways in which TIAs can be designed to achieve economic goals while also protecting public health, and identify complementary policy measures that may be needed as well as strategies for strategic policy engagement. This panel will be hosted by the UK-PRP PETRA Network (Prevention of noncommunicable disease using trade agreements). The UK will be negotiating a range of new TIAs over the coming years, representing a window of opportunity for strategic engagement with policymakers regarding how public health can be protected and promoted within these agreements. There is an emerging global body of evidence regarding how consideration of health can be integrated into TIAs, both textually and through strategic engagement with policymakers before and during the negotiation phase. Experience to date indicates common global challenges and opportunities for health and trade, as well as significant potential for cross country learning regarding trade and health. The panel discussion will use the UK experience as a springboard to address these global issues.

scholarly journals Defending access to medicines in regional trade agreements: lessons from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – a qualitative study of policy actors’ views

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Belinda Townsend
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Regional Trade ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Economic Partnership

Abstract Background The Regional Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) is a mega regional trade agreement signed by fifteen countries on 15 November 2020 after 8 years of negotiation. Signatories include the ten members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Australia. India was a negotiating party until it withdrew from the negotiations in November 2019. The RCEP negotiations were initially framed as focused on the needs of low income countries. Public health concerns emerged however when draft negotiating chapters were leaked online, revealing pressures on countries to agree to intellectual property and investment measures that could exacerbate issues of access to medicines and seeds, and protecting regulatory space for public health. A concerted Asia Pacific civil society campaign emerged in response to these concerns, and in 2019, media and government reporting suggested that several of these measures had been taken off the table, which was subsequently confirmed in the release of the signed text in November 2020. Results This paper examines civil society and health actors’ views of the conditions that successfully contributed to the removal of these measures in RCEP, with a focus on intellectual property and access to medicines. Drawing on twenty semi-structured qualitative interviews with civil society, government and legal and health experts from nine countries participating in the RCEP negotiations, the paper reports a matrix of ten conditions related to actor power, ideas, political context and specific health issues that appeared to support prioritisation of some public health concerns in the RCEP negotiations. Conclusions Conditions identified included strong low and middle income country leadership; strong civil society mobilisation, increased technical capacity of civil society and low and middle income negotiators; supportive public health norms; processes that somewhat opened up the negotiations to hear public health views; the use of evidence; domestic support for health issues; and supportive international public health legislation. Lessons from the RCEP can inform prioritisation of public health in future trade agreement negotiations.

scholarly journals Impact of Access to Medicines on Public Health. Problems Associated With Access, Use, and Abuse of Antibiotics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio G. Pisabarro ◽  
Denisse P. Rivera de la Torre
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
World Health ◽  
Local Market ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
High Resource

Access to medicines is one of the essential problems in Public Health of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines access to medicines as the possibility of "having continuously accessible and affordable medicines in public or private health facilities that are within a kilometer of the place of residence." Access to medicines, as defined by the WHO, is not fully guaranteed in many LMICs and even in many regions of high-resource countries. The WHO identifies several factors as determinants of limitations in the access to medicines: rational selection, affordable prices, sustainable financing, and reliable health services. The action on these factors makes it possible to improve universal access to medicines with consequent improvement in Public Health. Adequate access to antibiotics and vaccination will avoid a large part of the deaths caused by infectious diseases in the LMICs. However, the emergence of resistance and the difficulties in vaccination campaigns due to socio-political or cultural problems make it challenging to fight many easily treatable infectious diseases. The use and abuse of antibiotics are inevitably associated with the appearance of resistances that make them ineffective. Thus, whereas limited access to antibiotics raises mortality rates from infectious diseases, generalized open access to them ends up eliminating their clinical value. Moreover, the contraction of research in this field for many years has reduced the success in discovering new drugs. Additionally, local market regulations, inadequate selection, inaccessible prices, especially for those of second and third-generation, inefficient health systems, and difficulties of administration and control of prescription compliance, especially in the case of combined therapies, are additional obstacles to universal access to antibiotics. In order to simultaneously improve access to antibiotics and keep resistances under control, it is necessary to develop training and education activities at different social levels (from patients to various Health Care Providers) to complement the national or supranational strategic plans.

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