The Struggle for Affordable Drugs

News of an incredibly important development from David Bollier, author of the excellent "Silent Theft:the private plunder of our common wealth" and the just published "Brand Name Bullies:the quest to own and control culture", (which I've been waiting for Amazon to deliver for several weeks):

"Big Pharma is such a hard-driving, seemingly invincible player in global markets and policymaking that it often appears impossible to counter its influence. Now comes a fascinating new proposal that could radically change how the nations of the world could finance medical research for new drugs. Jamie Love, the brilliant strategist and director of the Consumer Project on Technology, working with dozens of influential scientists, public health officials and lawyers, has announced a new paradigm for trade policy on medical R&D.

For decades, under the current patent and trade regime, drug companies have ratcheted up the price and scope of their patent protections even though that is precisely what makes it harder to treat AIDS, malaria and many other diseases proliferating around the world, especially in developing countries. But how to get beyond this paradigm? After more than two years of discussion with an impressive list of global players, Love and others have developed a proposed medical R&D treaty that would make it easier to finance medical research on significant health problems. It would also reduce the prices of drugs that ultimately result from that research...

The working draft of the new treaty that the group proposes would try to create a global market in producing public goods -- namely, medically significant new drug research and treatments. Rather than financing such work through patent protection and high prices -- which are palpably not developing the necessary research or end-products at affordable prices -- the treaty would require signatory countries to spend an agreed-upon percentage of their Gross Domestic Product on qualified forms of R&D. Countries could meet their obligations through direct public funding of drug research, tax credits, philanthropic spending, innovation prizes, among other techniques. Strong patent protections would not be the only acceptable approach.

The treaty would serve to diversify the types of research being done; focus it on the most urgent public health problems; and decentralize control of R&D spending. The whole R&D expenditures process would be transparent and subject to independently verifiable measurement."