Cancer Group Recommendations To Ensure Medicines Access In South Africa Draft IP Policy

A US cancer group has provided a series of recommendations to the South African government on ways to improve the country’s draft national intellectual property policy, including greater transparency, voluntary licensing, and the use of compulsory licences.

The Union of Affordable Cancer Treatment (UACT) wrote a letter to the South African Minister of Trade and Industry raising concerns about the South African draft national policy on intellectual property.

The detailed 10 October letter [pdf] was sent by the Union for Affordable Cancer Treatment to South Africa Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies.

The letter calls for a transparency requirement on all royalties on patents granted in South Africa. It also suggests that to ensure adequate access where there is a public interest, the South Africa Ministry of Health should be allowed to require the manufacturers of drugs or vaccines to disclose the units sold in the country.

On the topic of de-linkage of research and development costs and the market price of medicines, South Africa should encourage the World Health Organization, UNITAID or another body to undertake a study of the feasibility of delinking prices for cancer drugs, a proposal that was debated during the 2017 World Health Assembly in the resolution on cancer, the letter says.