Intellectual Property and Health in Developing Countries

Few issues are as controversial as the impact of intellectual property on health in developing countries. Activists and poor countries ’ governments have, for example, long claimed that patents on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs make AIDS treatments unaffordable in Africa and other low-income areas. Pharmaceu-tical companies have argued, to the contrary, that the problem is elsewhere, and that rich countries ’ governments should take the responsibility if vaccines and drugs are to be brought to the poor. Rich countries ’ governments, un-surprisingly, have not been keen on committing funds to promote health in Third World countries. Finger-pointing with regard to the AIDS problem is but one of the many symptoms of the overall tension over intellectual property rights (IPRs) be-tween high-income countries, on the one hand, and middle- and low-income ones, on the other hand. More generally, IPRs are the focus of intense interest to developing countries, which express particular concerns for health, plant breeders ’ rights, traditional knowledge, and education and research. The WTO TRIPS agreement1 requires that all WTO members put in place some minimal protection of IPRs by 2006, with a more recent option for the least developed countries to extend the transition period to 2016. Of particular relevance for this chapter, about fifty developing members of WTO that did not provide patent protection for pharmaceutical products will now have to do so, although they will still be able to impose price controls on medicines and in “emergencies ” (a concept left broadly undefined at the WTO consultation in Doha in 2001) resort to compulsory licensing. This essay focuses on the impact of IPRs on low- and middle-incom