New IPR model to aid generic medicine sales
Innova-P2 project aims to create two-tier system
A three-year European Union (EU) research project is trying to develop a new intellectual property rights regime that will enable the inventors of medicines to adopt a liberal licence, allowing the swift manufacture of generic copies.
The Innova-P2 project, which comes to a close at the end of May, aims to create a ‘two-tiered patent system that would give innovators a choice’ and those adopting a tailor-made ‘Patent-2’ licence ‘would not have veto powers over the reproduction of their inventions’, the European Commission said. This would enable medicines to become available at competitive market prices, and Patent-2 holders would be remunerated from public funds ‘relative to the impact of their invention on the global burden of disease’. In this way there would be an incentive to develop innovative medicines while looking after the needs of poorer patients.
According to the EC, this latter consideration is undermined by the standard IPR regime’s effective 20-year global monopoly on medicine sales. Notably, leading companies to focus sales on wealthier markets to recoup costs can prevent medicines reaching poorer patients whose need could be the greatest – an example being the AIDS epidemic.
Innova-P2, coordinated by the UK’s University of Central Lancashire, will try to secure support for the new system from China and India.