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In early February, health experts from Japan and 33 other countries will convene at the 146th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board. These delegates form the key decision-making body that guides the WHO on global health, touching on diverse topics ranging from vaccines and food safety to maternal, newborn and child nutrition. As a leader on global health and development, Japan has great influence on the Executive Board. Other countries listen carefully to its views.
This year the Executive Board will revisit the WHO’s Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (GSPOA). Negotiated for many years and approved by consensus in 2008, the GSPOA is a framework to help countries set policies to drive discovery of new treatments and cures for diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries. Critically, the GSPOA recognized the importance of intellectual property (IP) protections as “an important incentive in the development of health care products.”
Unfortunately, there have been efforts to refocus the GSPOA on issues that would harm innovation, both for developed and developing countries. Rather than strengthen the IP protections that support health care innovation, some groups have urged governments to weaken them, for example, by breaking patents on new inventions – a drastic action known as compulsory licensing. But studies continue to refute the flawed notion that intellectual property protections prevent patients from accessing new technologies and point to many others barriers that stand in the way.
In the past, Japan has strongly valued and defended intellectual property rights, as well as biomedical research and development, recognizing that the “promotion of research and development is an important element to strengthen the health system and realize universal health coverage.” The focus on innovation can be seen in the country’s robust biotechnology sector. For example, according to the most recent data, Japan filed 1,683 biotech patent applications in 2017 alone—putting it behind only the United States and the European Union. Moreover, according to recent figures, in a single year over $13 billion were invested in pharmaceutical industry research and development. These impressive figures have helped Japan rank among the top three countries in the world on innovation quality, per the World Intellectual Property Organization’s 2019 Global Innovation Index.
The February 2020 WHO Executive Board meeting is an excellent opportunity for Japan to underscore the value of intellectual property on the global stage – and help to find real solutions to pressing global health challenges.
Further, statements in recent international meetings echo their support of innovation:
- At the World Health Assembly in May, Japan took a clear stand on the critical role of incentivizing innovation to ensure global access to medicines stating, “It is necessary to provide incentives such as investment and intellectual property protections for companies and research institutions to promote R&D, especially for R&D.”
- During that same meeting the Japanese delegation went on to say that, “We—member states and stakeholders— need to come up with a method to enhance R&D, while respecting the costs invested in R&D,” and pointed to recent commitments the country has made to further innovation, highlighting the Global Health and Innovative Tech fund, which was established to “promote R&D of pharmaceuticals for NCDs, TB and malaria.”
- In the fall, Japan continued to advocate the promotion and protection of global innovation at the 2019 WIPO assemblies. In a written statement the country underscored the importance of IP, maintaining that Japan “strongly believe[s] that improving IP systems will achieve self-sustained economic development in developing countries as well as contribute to developing the global economy.”
The February 2020 WHO Executive Board meeting is an excellent opportunity for Japan to underscore the value of intellectual property on the global stage – and help to find real solutions to pressing global health challenges.
For example, Japan can help prompt a serious conversation about better using incentives, including intellectual property, to spur more research and development into diseases affecting the developing world. Japan can also stress the need for countries, at all levels of development, to have strong health care systems that enable universal access to safe and affordable medicines.
