BACKGROUND In India, 50-65% of the population face difficulties in accessing medicines. The Health Impact Fund (HIF) is a novel proposal whereby pharmaceutical companies would be paid based on the measured global health impact of their drugs. We conducted a key stakeholder analysis to explore access to medicines in India, acceptability of the HIF and potential barriers and facilitators at polic...

The authors address how patent protection in the United States is often quite narrow in scope, difficult to obtain, and insufficient in duration, thus stifling research and development of potential breakthrough pharmaceuticals. The authors further posit that countries that have enacted stronger intellectual property rights and research incentives have seen tremendous increases in foreign direct...

The extension of intellectual property rights into the realm of biology has emerged as an increasing focus of controversy in relation to science, biodiversity, agriculture, health, development, human rights and trade. This paper presents the results of a review of international trends in activity for patent protection between 1990-2000 and provisional data to 2004 and 2005 from over 70 national...

Rising prices of medicines are putting them beyond the reach of many people, even in rich countries. In less-developed countries, millions of individuals do not have access to essential drugs. Drug development is failing to address the major health needs of these countries. The prices of patented medicines usually far exceed the marginal costs of their production; the industry maintains that hi...

Health impact assessment (HIA) is increasingly being used to predict the health and social impacts of domestic and global laws, policies and programs. In a comprehensive review of HIA practice in 2012, the authors indicated that, given the diverse range of HIA practice, there is an immediate need to reconsider the governing values and standards for HIA implementation [1]. This article responds ...

This paper considers the role of intellectual property rights in the development of and access to new pharmaceuticals. A number of studies have found patents are significantly more important to pharmaceutical firms in appropriating the benefits from innovation compared to other high tech industries. The reason for this is because the costs of drug innovation are very high while the costs of imi...

The stated purpose of intellectual property protection is to stimulate innovation. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) requires all Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to enact national laws conferring minimum standards of intellectual property protection by certain deadlines. Critics of the Agreement fear that such action is inconsistent wit...

The TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) mandated the introduction of protection of intellectual property rights, notably patents, for pharmaceutical products. While the implications for the access to medicines contained in the terms of this Agreement raised significant concerns, a recent new wave of free trade agreements, negotiated outside the WTO, requires even higher levels...

ONGOING DEBATES IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR ABOUT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, PRICING AND REIMBURSEMENT, AND PUBLIC RESEARCH INVESTMENTS HAVE A COMMON DENOMINATOR: the pursuit of innovation. However, there is little clarity about what constitutes a true pharmaceutical innovation, and as a result there is confusion about what kind of new products should be pursued, protected and encouraged through h...

On 1 January 2005, a controversial trade agreement entered into force between Australia and the United States. Though heralded by the parties as facilitating the removal of barriers to free trade (in ways not achievable in multilateral fora), it also contained many trade-restricting intellectual property provisions and others uniquely related to altering pharmaceutical regulation and public hea...