First Big Pharma was advised to adopt free or differential pricing to developing nations – now the mask is off and it’s all about middle-income countries after all. But wasn’t this entirely predictable, that companies would be criticized for doing what the activists had asked for in the first place?
In healthcare, as in life – no good deed goes unpunished.
Merck and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) signed a licensing agreement last for pediatric formulations of raltegravir, one of the few HIV drugs approved for children younger than three. Using the new license, drug manufacturers can make cheaper versions of raltegravir because they do not have to pay royalties to Merck.
The MPP was founded in 2010 by UNITAID, a UN-backed initiative aiming to use innovative financing to increase access to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria medicines in developing nations. The pool lets drug manufacturers in developing countries produce and sell low-cost HIV treatments through voluntary licensing and patent pooling.
Good news right? Not for some. Critics have told SciDev.Net (hardly a pharma-friendly media outlet) that it is "a false solution to a real problem.”
Intellectual property “expert” Othoman Mellouk is critical of the agreement. Mellouk, who works at the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, a well-known anti-IP organization, says he thinks the agreement looks like a PR exercise that will not deliver improved access to medicines where they are most needed.
"The MPP mechanism ensures originator companies are in control and determine the parameters of agreements,” says Mellouk. He then adds that voluntary licenses such as those agreed through MPP actually undermine a country's negotiation power and ability to use TRIPS flexibilities.
He notes that the 92 licensed nations are mostly low-income countries with little pharmaceutical industry, meaning it would be easy for monopolies on drug production to form. He points out that middle-income nations including China and India - which have more competitive pharmaceutical industries - are excluded.
"The MPP mechanism ensures originator companies are in control and determine the parameters of agreements.” Owners of intellectual property, per Mr. Mellouk, shouldn’t be in charge of their … intellectual property.
The bottom line is that he’s living in a fantasyland where working with the globally applauded Medicines Patent Pool is not just a bad idea – but a nefarious scheme. Note to Mr. Mellouk – Wake up. The reality of global healthcare isn’t good versus evil but about allies working together to improve patient care. Alas, that is not a potent fund raising message for his (and like-minded) organizations, but it’s good news for patients in the developing world.
Martina Penazzato, pediatric advisor for the WHO's HIV department, is more positive about the agreement: "What we need for children with HIV is better drugs, better formulations, and we need to have them developed much more quickly."
Amen.
