This paper examines the nexus between poverty and global health with specific focus on IPR protection and attempts to highlight the current global endeavours to overcome barriers to access to medicines for diseases of the poor. The number of very poor people in the world has increased by 10.4 per cent between 1987 and 2001 to 2735 million. India is now home to the largest number of millionaires...

T he Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement, Box 1) has to a large extent harmonized standards for intellectual property rights, including patents. For many countries, the TRIPS standards were higher than their previous standards. For example, TRIPS obliges countries to allow patenting of pharmaceuticals and imposes a minimum duration of 20 years...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expresse...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement is a proposed free trade agreement between the US and 11 other countries in Asia and South America covering many consumer goods, including prescription medicines. This review describes how the TPP could affect international laws governing intellectual property rights for prescription drugs, focusing on patents and exclusivity protections for test da...

The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly looking towards emergingmarkets, where demand for new drugs is rising rapidly alongside rates of chronic disease. But in recent years India, known as the “pharmacy of the developing world,” has led the battle for affordable drugs, using legal mechanisms to overturn patents so that its generic drug companies (which produce a fifth of the world’s generi...

OBJECTIVE The World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement establishes minimum standards for intellectual property rights, including patent protection for pharmaceuticals; therefore, it may make it difficult for developing countries to gain access to medicines, especially those countries that are the least developed. This study aims to deter...

Much of the current debate on health care goals, medical innovation and trade rules focuses on the misalignment between the need to provide incentives to innovation – mainly through a tight intellectual property (IPR) regime – and the resulting negative consequences in terms of access to medicines. While this clash is certainly crucial, this contribution focuses on a different aspect of the mis...

Pharmaceutical co-crystallisation is emerging as a possible alternative to polymorphs, salts and solvates in the modification of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) during dosage form. It may alter the physico-chemical properties of the API (e.g. melting point and solubility), and also have intellectual property implications. Traditionally, co-crystallisation research has involved robust ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) promotes the use of generic drug policies to foster competition in the pharmaceutical sector, reduce drug prices, and increase access to therapeutic drugs. However, little is known about how countries implement these policies. This article describes different terminology adopted by national regulatory authorities to define generic versus proprietary drug prod...

This study investigates the firm level determinants of profitability of Indian drug and pharmaceutical industry. The study uses inflation adjusted panel data for a period 2000-2013 and applies OLS regression model with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors. It has been found that export intensity, A&M intensity, firm’s market power and stronger patent regime dummy have exercised positive influence on ...