Read this article in Spanish here.
Chile 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, the Chilean delegation 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, Chile will help shape the discussion about how the WHO should approach this issue.
Unfortunately, the WHO’s Roadmap, as 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 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. Chile—who has consistently ranked among the most innovative countries in Latin America—has a particularly important role to play, especially since Chilean patients—and Chile’s economy—have benefited from an innovation-friendly ecosystem.
Take the remarkable growth in Chile’s biopharmaceutical sector, for example. Within the last three years, it has grown by 30 percent, according to the Chilean Association of Biotechnology (ASEMBIO), making the industry one of the most promising emerging sectors in the country. Moreover, Chile leads in number of clinical trials per capita in Latin America, with 71.4 trials per million population according to the most recent figures. And it also received a score of 66.9 on the latest Innovative Pharmaceutical Risk and Reward Index (RRI)—a number that is closing in on other rapidly expanding countries like Canada (77.2) and China (72.0). This success is likely due to the Chilean government’s support for innovation over the past several decades.
As the WHO Executive Board considers how to improve access to medicines, Chile has an opportunity to take a stand in favor of innovation and patient health—and step away from proposals that undermine IP and economic growth. As a standout innovation leader in Latin America with a flourishing biotechnology sector, Chile 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, rather than narrowly suggesting a systematic erosion of important intellectual property rights and R&D incentives. In particular, Chile 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 Chile 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.
