Médecins Sans Frontières Calls on Drug Companies to Pool HIV Patents

    By Donald Zuhn –-

Last month, the international humanitarian aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) -- known to many as Doctors Without Borders -- announced that it was asking nine of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to pool their HIV patents in order to accelerate the availability of new treatments to HIV/AIDS patients.  As part of the effort to encourage these companies to pool their patents, MSF has launched an e-mail writing campaign calling on Abbott Laboratories, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co, Pfizer, and Sequoia Pharmaceuticals to place specific HIV drug patents in the pool.  The specific patents relate to drugs that MSF has identified to be essential based on the group's field experience, and which have been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for use in developing countries.  Michelle Childs, the Director of Policy & Advocacy for MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, said that while the creation of an HIV patent pool was "a simple idea," in which the companies would "share their knowledge in return for fair royalty payments," such a pool would have "the potential to transform companies' approaches to access to HIV medicines and foster innovation in a way that marks an alternative to the confrontation and litigation of the past."

The MSF release noted that the international drug purchasing agency UNITAID was currently establishing a medicines patent pool for HIV drugs, but said the success of this effort depended on the willingness of patent owners to participate by including their patent rights in the pool.  Ms. Childs stated that the UNITAID project presented "an opportunity for these drug companies to demonstrate that they are genuinely committed to effective measures that allow access to life-saving medicines for people with HIV in developing countries," adding that "[s]ome companies have expressed interest in the idea, but we need them to go further and put key patents in the pool."  Dr. Eric Goemaere, medical coordinator for MSF in South Africa, noted that the formation of the patent pool "comes at a crucial time," because many HIV/AIDS patients in MSF's South African programs have developed resistance to current medicines and "need to switch to newer more effective drugs now."  Without new medicines, Dr. Goemaere said such patients "face a return to AIDS death row as treatment options dry up."

The group contends that the formation of an HIV patent pool would "speed up the availability of more affordable versions of new medicines, as generic production could begin well before the 20-year patent terms expire."  In its release, MSF suggests that patent barriers prevent innovations such as new pediatric formulations or fixed-dose combinations.

In a Daily News & Analysis report regarding the HIV patent pool, an unnamed MSF official noted that because the pool "will lead to companies losing monopoly . . . some of them don't seem keen on such a proposition."  However, the official said that Gilead Sciences had shown some interest.  In the same report, a GSK spokesperson stated that the company had created a patent pool for neglected tropical diseases earlier this year "because we felt it could help draw attention to the need for more research," but contended that "HIV is not included in our patent pool because as far as R&D is concerned, we do not consider it as neglected."  In August, Patent Docs reported on GSK's patent pool, which was formed to aid in the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment of sixteen neglected tropical diseases, and which, at the time, comprised more than 2,300 patents (see "Alnylam to Donate RNAi Patents to Patent Pool").

Comments

[Gena777]

Let's hope drug companies will get on board with patent pools when it comes to public health threats such as epidemic diseases. Not only is it the responsible thing to do, but it also offers drug companies the opportunity to enhance their reputations and public profiles.
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