WHO Draft Resolution Calls For Global Plan Of Action On IP And Medicines

A draft resolution from the World Health Organization based on a recent WHO report on intellectual property rights and public health calls for “a global plan of action,” particularly with regard to diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries.

The resolution requests three steps from the director general: First, to prepare the global plan of action based on the recommendations in the report “in consultation with member states and all interested parties”; second, “to continue to monitor, from a public health perspective, the impact of intellectual property rights on the development of new health care products; and third, to report through the executive board to the 60th World Health Assembly on progress made with the global plan.

The 59th World Health Assembly is scheduled for 22-27 May.

The report upon which the resolution is based was published on 3 April by the WHO Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) (IPW, Public Health, 3 April 2006). As it was delayed and not ready for the WHO Executive Board meeting on 23-27 January, the meeting decided that a resolution would be developed based on the recommendations in the report.

The resolution was sent out to WHO member countries last week and will first be considered at a “mini-executive board” meeting of two representatives from WHO’s six regions tomorrow, 28 April, and later by the World Health Assembly in May (IPW, Public Health, 26 April 2006).

There is a separate proposed resolution on a new research and development framework from Brazil and Kenya that also will be discussed at the May assembly. The meeting on 28 April may address the relationship between the two resolutions.

In the new resolution based on the CIPIH report, it says it is conscious of the growing burden and conditions disproportionately affecting developing countries and the opportunities that advances in biomedical sciences have opened up.

It also notes that although intellectual property rights are an important incentive, “this lacks efficacy for the development of new products to fight diseases where the potential paying market is small or uncertain.”

The CIPIH was based on resolution WHA56.27, which requested the director general to “establish terms of reference for an appropriate time-limited body to collect data and proposals from the different actors involved and produce and analysis of intellectual property rights, innovation and public health,” according to the resolution. The CIPIH had 10 expert members (IPW, Public Health, 23 January 2006).