In 2006, the World Health Organization issued a report (URL: http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/en/) which claimed that too few drugs are developed for ‘neglected’ tropical diseases that especially affect poor countries, and that the international patent system prevents drugs from getting to the neediest.

This report now forms the basis of Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) (URL: http://www.who.int/phi/en/) at the WHO, which is working on creating a plan of action (URL: http://www.who.int/gb/phi/pdf/igwg1/phi_igwg1_5-en.pdf) to address these alleged problems. This all sounds fine in principle. However, the Working Group’s plan of action is built on a set of fallacies which do not bear scrutiny.

First, ‘neglected’ diseases only constitute a declining fraction of the burden of disease in the poorest countries. Moreover, these and other ‘diseases of poverty’ have attracted huge amounts of donor aid since 2004.

Second, Research and Development is currently taking place for these diseases at an unprecedented rate.

Third, there is no clear evidence to suggest the international patent system is a barrier to access of medicines by the poor. The drugs which could address the majority of the disease burden in less developed countries are readily available, cheap and off-patent. Moreover, patents are rarely registered or enforced in such countries. Low rates of access to medicine are attributable to state failures, such as the inability to provide adequate health infrastructure, or proper health insurance.

An article in the Lancet recently commented, “when developing evidence-based guidelines, the World Health Organization routinely forgets one key ingredient: evidence”. Despite this lack of evidence, the IGWG is pushing ahead with a plan of action that looks set to take the cheap and populist route of undermining international intellectual property rights, while leaving the basic questions about health provision in less developed countries unanswered.

In order to register our concern at the direction of the IGWG, this commentary (URL:

http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/civil_soc_IGWG.pdf) has been prepared by a group of 25 non-partisan civil society groups from around the world.

It seems that in the case of the IGWG, politics is more important than evidence. The issues of innovation and intellectual property are of critical importance to the international economy and health. Before the WHO pushes for public policies that put innovation at risk, it needs to be one hundred percent certain of its facts.

Read the report here. URL: http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/civil_soc_IGWG.pdf 

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