WHO, WIPO and WTO to create pharmaceutical patent database
Aim to help the production of affordable medicines
The leaders of three key international organisations have pledged to work together to create a publicly accessible global database giving information about patented medicines, to help the production of affordable medicine.
The decision was made at a technical symposium in Geneva, Switzerland organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
WTO director-general Pascal Lamy called for an information platform that ‘is accessible for all, usable by even those who lack technical or legal expertise, and which gives real-time information about the patent coverage of essential medicines’.
‘All of us who care deeply about health innovation and access to medicines would benefit from improved accessibility of these raw data, but also from the careful putting together of all of the pieces of the empirical puzzle,’ he said.
WIPO director-general Francis Gurry stressed that digital databases were already making information on patents easier to obtain, noting that his organisation’s searchable IP database Patentscope now has 7 million documents, which will rise to 20 million during 2011.
WHO director-general Margaret Chan said such an initiative would help health services manage tight budgets worldwide by ‘procuring lower-cost generic products’ helping them to buy ‘with a good understanding of patent status’. This situation was particularly important in emerging markets, she said.
Chan explained: ‘Public health now finds itself caught in a cross-current of rising expectations and ambitions, set against rising demands and costs…when funds are stagnant or shrinking…introducing greater efficiency is a far better option than cutting budgets and services.’
These pressures and their implications ‘address the need for more transparent and accessible data on patents to support decisions about freedom to operate,’ she added.
Lamy wants the three organisations to improve cooperation – they are all UN agencies based in Geneva. He welcomed progress made in ensuring that the secretariats of all three agencies share expertise and information resources.