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The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement
BACKGROUND: It is now 25 years since the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the same concerns raised during its negotiations such as high prices of medicines, market exclusivity and delayed market entry for generics remain relevant as highl...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7951129/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33706726 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10374-y |
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author | Motari, Marion Nikiema, Jean-Baptiste Kasilo, Ossy M. J. Kniazkov, Stanislav Loua, Andre Sougou, Aissatou Tumusiime, Prosper |
author_facet | Motari, Marion Nikiema, Jean-Baptiste Kasilo, Ossy M. J. Kniazkov, Stanislav Loua, Andre Sougou, Aissatou Tumusiime, Prosper |
author_sort | Motari, Marion |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: It is now 25 years since the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the same concerns raised during its negotiations such as high prices of medicines, market exclusivity and delayed market entry for generics remain relevant as highlighted recently by the Ebola and COVID-19 pandemics. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) mandate to work on the interface between intellectual property, innovation and access to medicine has been continually reinforced and extended to include providing support to countries on the implementation of TRIPS flexibilities in collaboration with stakeholders. This study analyses the role of intellectual property on access to medicines in the African Region. METHODS: We analyze patent data from the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI) to provide a situational analysis of patenting activity and trends. We also review legislation to assess how TRIPS flexibilities are implemented in countries. RESULTS: Patenting was low for African countries. Only South Africa and Cameroon appeared in the list of top ten originator countries for ARIPO and OAPI respectively. Main diseases covered by African patents were HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and tumors. Majority countries have legislation allowing for compulsory licensing and parallel importation of medicines, while the least legislated flexibilities were explicit exemption of pharmaceutical products from patentable subject matter, new or second use of patented pharmaceutical products, imposition of limits to patent term extension and test data protection. Thirty-nine countries have applied TRIPS flexibilities, with the most common being compulsory licensing and least developed country transition provisions. CONCLUSIONS: Opportunities exist for WHO to work with ARIPO and OAPI to support countries in reviewing their legislation to be more responsive to public health needs. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7951129 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79511292021-03-12 The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement Motari, Marion Nikiema, Jean-Baptiste Kasilo, Ossy M. J. Kniazkov, Stanislav Loua, Andre Sougou, Aissatou Tumusiime, Prosper BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: It is now 25 years since the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the same concerns raised during its negotiations such as high prices of medicines, market exclusivity and delayed market entry for generics remain relevant as highlighted recently by the Ebola and COVID-19 pandemics. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) mandate to work on the interface between intellectual property, innovation and access to medicine has been continually reinforced and extended to include providing support to countries on the implementation of TRIPS flexibilities in collaboration with stakeholders. This study analyses the role of intellectual property on access to medicines in the African Region. METHODS: We analyze patent data from the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI) to provide a situational analysis of patenting activity and trends. We also review legislation to assess how TRIPS flexibilities are implemented in countries. RESULTS: Patenting was low for African countries. Only South Africa and Cameroon appeared in the list of top ten originator countries for ARIPO and OAPI respectively. Main diseases covered by African patents were HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and tumors. Majority countries have legislation allowing for compulsory licensing and parallel importation of medicines, while the least legislated flexibilities were explicit exemption of pharmaceutical products from patentable subject matter, new or second use of patented pharmaceutical products, imposition of limits to patent term extension and test data protection. Thirty-nine countries have applied TRIPS flexibilities, with the most common being compulsory licensing and least developed country transition provisions. CONCLUSIONS: Opportunities exist for WHO to work with ARIPO and OAPI to support countries in reviewing their legislation to be more responsive to public health needs. BioMed Central 2021-03-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7951129/ /pubmed/33706726 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10374-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Motari, Marion Nikiema, Jean-Baptiste Kasilo, Ossy M. J. Kniazkov, Stanislav Loua, Andre Sougou, Aissatou Tumusiime, Prosper The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement |
title | The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement |
title_full | The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement |
title_fullStr | The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement |
title_full_unstemmed | The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement |
title_short | The role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the WHO African region: 25 years after the TRIPS agreement |
title_sort | role of intellectual property rights on access to medicines in the who african region: 25 years after the trips agreement |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7951129/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33706726 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10374-y |
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