Report of the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health: an industry perspective.

The report issued by WHO’s Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Public Health1 (CIPIH) makes a number of positive recommendations for improving health in developing countries. However, the report understates the value of intellectual property rights for promoting public health and overstates the importance of intellectual property in affecting access to health care. Indeed, the report favours compulsory licensing as a method for improving access to medicines, which is not justified by the evidence available. The mixed recommendations of the report reflect the fact that there was no consensus among the Commissioners regarding intellectual property issues.