WHO Moves IP, Innovation Out Of Director General’s Office

The World Health Organization has moved responsibility for intellectual property and innovation issues out of the direct control of the WHO director general and into the company of information, evidence and research, according to sources.

The WHO Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) programme will move to the cluster on Information, Evidence and Research, the WHO press office confirmed today. It was previously in the director general’s office.

PHI now answers to the assistant director-general on Information, Evidence and Research Marie-Paule Kieny.

The move takes effect on 1 November, according to an internal message from the director general to WHO staff circulated today by Knowledge Ecology International. The Information, Evidence and Research cluster will be renamed the Innovation, Information, Evidence and Research cluster in recognition of the “importance of innovation in improving health, and of collaboration to facilitate access to new technologies,” the internal message said.

A French national, Kieny is new to the division. The WHO website says she took up the post in October 2010. Previously, she directed the WHO Initiative for Vaccine Research since it began in 2001, with significant involvement in WHO efforts on pandemic influenza vaccines. She also previously served at the French Institute national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, and worked at Transgene, a French biopharmaceutical company.

According to a (now outdated) organigram [pdf] of the WHO, this puts PHI in the company of the following programmes: Ethics, Equity, Trade and Human Rights; Knowledge Management and Sharing; Measurement and Health Information Systems; Research Policy and Cooperation; and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases.

PHI is the division responsible for overseeing the overall implementation of the WHO Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. One major issue on its agenda for the year is a new expert working group on financing research and development of drugs for neglected diseases, after member states said a report by a previous expert group on that topic did not address critical concerns.

A description of major decisions on IP and health taken at the May 2010 World Health Assembly is available here for IPW subscribers: IPW, WHO, 27 July 2010. The division has seen a few personnel changes in recent months (IPW, WHO, 23 April 2010), but this move appears to be one of many internal changes taking place at the WHO.

William New contributed to this report.