Read this article in German here.

Germany is now serving a three-year term on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Executive Board, a key decision-making body that guides the WHO’s work on global health. Alongside thirty-three other countries on the Executive Board, Germany will attend the 144th session of the Executive Board in January 2019 to discuss topics ranging from polio eradication to the health implications of climate change.

But perhaps the most important topic on the Executive Board’s agenda is the WHO’s proposed Roadmap on Access to Medicines. This Roadmap sets priorities for the next five years of the WHO’s work on medicines around the world. As an Executive Board member, Germany will help shape the discussion about how the WHO should approach this issue.

Unfortunately, the WHO’s Roadmap, proposed by the WHO’s Secretariat, has serious problems that Member States need to fix. For example, the Roadmap envisions an expanded WHO role advising countries on intellectual property, such as the use of “compulsory licenses” (sometimes called “TRIPS flexibilities”) to allow the manufacture of patented medicines without the patent owners’ consent. This is unnecessary and would gravely harm global innovation – making it harder for patients to access today’s medicines and undermining investment in tomorrow’s new treatments and cures.

The WHO’s Roadmap reflects a tendency at the WHO to see patents as a barrier to access.  But this isn’t true: research has found no correlation between intellectual property and access to medicines.  Nearly all the drugs the WHO deems “essential” are already off-patent yet still out of reach for millions due to other factors, such as weak and underfunded health care systems.  Strengthening IP can actually facilitate access, both by stimulating new discoveries and making it easier for innovative medicines to reach patients that need them.  

The WHO is also ill-suited to make these recommendations: it lacks the expertise to advise countries on the complex technical, economic and trade implications of intellectual property (IP) protections. Many countries have already raised concerns that the WHO should not spend its limited resources working on such polarizing tasks that are unlikely to improve access to medicines. 

WHO Executive Board members need to step up—and speak out—about the vital role of IP in spurring new discoveries. In the past, Germany has been among the most outspoken defenders of biomedical research and development. This doesn’t come as a surprise considering the country’s global leadership in innovation.

Take Germany’s patent figures, for example. In 2015, the European Patent Office received nearly 1,200 German patent applications for biotech and pharmaceutical innovations—putting the country behind only the United States for patent application rate. Moreover, according to the most recent figures, in a single year €6 billion euros was invested into pharmaceutical industry research and development (R&D); and R&D-intensive sectors provide 641,000 German jobs. Additionally, Germany came in at 9th in the world in the 2018 Global Innovation Index.

Germany’s statements in recent international meetings show that its leaders are aware of the vital importance of their strong innovation economy—not just for their country’s own development but for improvements to global progress:

• At the May 2018 World Health Assembly, German representatives staunchly defended IP, saying that “Germany sees the protection of intellectual property, in particular through patents for pharmaceutical products, as part of the solution, namely as an important incentive for innovation.”
• In written comments submitted last summer on a previous draft of the Roadmap on Access to Medicines, Germany said that “it is imperative that we must employ an approach which correctly depicts the role of IP as stimulator for innovation in the medical treatment of patients” and recognized that we must take into account IP’s role as “incentive in research and clinical progress.”
• Germany also defended IP at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Assemblies in Geneva last fall. The German representative called intellectual property rights an “integral part of the legal economic and cultural framework within which enterprises and societies as a whole function” and “the whole of society benefits substantially from knowledge-driven innovation.”

These statements show Germany’s deep commitment to furthering innovation so that patients around the world can access today’s treatments and tomorrow’s cures.

As WHO Executive Board considers how to improve access to medicines, Germany has an opportunity to rebut the idea that weakening IP will do anything to improve access. As a global health leader and major funder of development assistance, Germany can help focus the WHO on tackling the real barriers to access, such as weak and under-funded health care systems, poor infrastructure and taxes/tariffs. In particular, Germany should speak out clearly at the Executive Board meeting to convey concerns about the Roadmap and ensure it does not lead to expanded WHO activities that would undermine IP globally.

Now’s the time to act. Patients around the world depend on Germany and the other Executive Board members to lead the charge on proactive and comprehensive solutions that address the real and complex obstacles to better global health.