PRNewswire (May 04, 12:01 PM) LONDON, May 4 /PRNewswire/ -- A study authored by Royal Institute of International Affairs fellow, Amir Attaran, published today in Health Affairs magazine concludes that poverty, not patents, is the main barrier to access to essential medicines in the developing world (http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/155).
In recent years, international concern on whether pharmaceutical patents interfere with access to "essential medicines" in the developing world has spawned a debate engaging governments, world-wide bodies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and pharmaceutical companies.
The study tests the extent to which pharmaceutical patents interfere with access to "essential medicines" in the developing world, and finds that patents for essential medicines are "uncommon in poor countries and cannot readily explain why access to those medicines is often lacking, suggesting that poverty not patents, imposes the greater limitation on access."
Attaran says this new study will " ... shed light on the policy dialogue among public health activists, the pharmaceutical industry, and governments that is often based on mistaken premises about how patents affect corporate revenues or the health of the world's poorest."
Highlights from the Study
* " ... sixty-five low and middle income countries, where four billion
people live, patenting is rare for 319 products on the World Health
Organization's (WHO) Model List of Essential Medicines."
* "Nearly all of the patented, brand name essential drugs are deeply
discounted in developing countries, so that the original products and
their generic counterparts are often priced similarly ... "
* "Patents very infrequently block access to generic versions of essential
medicines"
* "It is extremely doubtful that this use of compulsory licensing,
although much celebrated, can be made practicable"
* "The ongoing conflict over patents must be resolved swiftly, as is
easily done, and the energies now spent on that issue redirected toward
these more pressing challenges ... "
* "Pragmatism and greater flexibility are urged, so that policy may better
concentrate on the greater causes of epidemic mortality, which now pose
unprecedented threats to global peace and security."
The Royal Institute of International Affairs
CONTACT: Laura Dlugacz, +1-202-572-6231, for the Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs
Web site: http://www.riia.org/
