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Noehrenberg, Eric --- "The Realities of TRIPS, Patents and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries" [2006] ELECD 330; in Pugatch, Perez Meir (ed), "The Intellectual Property Debate" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: The Intellectual Property Debate

Editor(s): Pugatch, Perez Meir

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845420383

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: The Realities of TRIPS, Patents and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries

Author(s): Noehrenberg, Eric

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

10. The realities of TRIPS, patents and
access to medicines in developing
countries
Eric Noehrenberg*

The question of patents and access to medicines in developing countries
has been a controversial and often emotional debate for years, particularly
since the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle, USA in 1999. Often, the rela-
tionship between patents and access to medicines in developing countries is
presented as a simple equation: the stronger the patents, the less access to
medicines. In the media, the perceived conflict between patents and access
to medicines is presented even more starkly: a child suffering from late-stage
AIDS is presented on-screen and the viewer is informed that, if only
the AIDS drugs were affordable, the child would live, but the price of the
patented drugs are far beyond what the child's family can afford. The
program then cuts to an interview with a pharmaceutical industry execu-
tive, who speaks about the importance of intellectual property rights for
future innovation, which is why patents should be upheld, even in develop-
ing countries. The viewer is thus left with the following impression: the child
will die because the companies holding the patents on the drugs which he
or she needs want to protect their profits.
Given this presentation of the situation, it is only human to conclude
that, if patents on drugs are resulting in the deaths of so many people
around the world, they should be weakened or even dropped when they
prevent people from getting the medicines ...