AIDS group lauds WHO report urging ease of drug patents in poor countries.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (Los Angeles, CA), the largest AIDS organization in the United States which operates free AIDS treatment clinics in the United States, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia lauded a 228-page report commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) and drawn up by the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) urging international drug companies to reduce prices and ease patents on medicines to poor countries. The independent body also called for rich countries to avoid requiring the strengthening of patent protections as a condition to joining international trade agreements when it limits access to medications in poor countries. Most controversially, the report recommended that developing countries use their ability to issue compulsory licensing and override patent rights when necessary.

"AIDS Healthcare Foundation applauds WHO and the Commission for this timely report that not only urges drug companies to lower drug prices and ease patents for low-and middle-income countries, but also acknowledges the responsibility of resource-rich nations to ensure that international trade agreements do not impede access to lifesaving medications in poor countries by restricting the production of cheaper generics," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Our own experience as a treatment provider in Honduras -- a country that will soon be bound by stricter patent protections under the Central American Free Trade Agreement -- is that patients often enter our clinics at risk for medication resistance because of prior sporadic use of donated AIDS medications. If the WHO Report recommendations are adopted and greater access to affordable HIV/AIDS medications is achieved, it will mean vastly improved health outcomes for patients in low and middle-income countries. We agree with the CIPIH sentiment that without access to the lifesaving products of drug company innovation, there can be no public health benefits -- in Honduras or in other poor countries of the world."

AHF believes that a program that allows for the production of cheaper generic versions of newer AIDS drugs is essential to stemming the tide of AIDS around the globe as drug resistance will require that more and more people be treated with these newer, or second-line, drugs -- often still under patent protection. Ensuring access to affordable AIDS medications will require the cooperation of all stakeholders, including world bodies, like the WHO and the Global Fund, as well as governments and international pharmaceutical companies.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation strongly advocated for the removal of provisions in CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) that required participating countries (Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras) to strengthen patent laws to mirror United States policy, making it harder to produce cheaper generic versions of AIDS drugs and severely limiting access to life-saving AIDS drugs throughout Central America. AHF, along with Congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), also hosted a conference last November in Washington D.C., bringing together policymakers, industry officials and health advocates to assess the impact of intellectual property protections on access to essential medications, including HIV/AIDS drugs. The one-day meeting, entitled 'Global Trade and Access to Lifesaving Drugs,' included three panels of distinguished speakers opening a dialogue about how to ensure that global trade agreements protect intellectual property and medical innovation, without placing barriers on access to lifesaving medicines and becoming a hindrance in the fight against global epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS.

According to "WHO Plea to Drug Companies," by Sarah Boseley, which appeared in The Guardian on April 4, 2006: "Drug companies should not take out patents on their new medicines or enforce patents in poor countries if that is likely to prevent patients from getting them, an influential commission set up by the World Health Organization said yesterday. The Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health spent two years drawing up proposals on the contentious and hard-fought issues of access to medicines in poor countries. Controversy over deaths from HIV/AIDS, which has become a treatable disease in the rich world, was behind the setting up of the commission under the former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss. The pharmaceutical industry has long argued that patents, granting a 20-year exclusive right to market a drug, are not the problem. It says that the absence of clinics, hospitals and medical staff are the real reason why people do not get treated. But the commission disagrees, saying generic companies should be allowed to make cheap copies in poor countries."

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Communications

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