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In early February, health experts from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 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, UAE 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.
The February 2020 WHO Executive Board meeting is an excellent opportunity for UAE to underscore the value of innovation and intellectual property on the global stage – and help to find real solutions to pressing global health challenges.
While relatively new to the WHO Executive Board, the UAE has long appreciated the value of intellectual property as key policies and plans note:
- In its 2030 economic plan, the capital emirate of Abu Dhabi noted “the enforcement of Intellectual Property rights is also an important consideration for the Government, especially as it seeks to play a role in a more globally linked economy. Abu Dhabi ranks in the top quarter of countries internationally, and is considered to be well ahead of other countries in the region in ensuring the protection of patents and intellectual information.”
- In the country’s National Innovation Strategy, released in 2014, the UAE is working to build an innovation regulatory framework with “efficient and effective patent registration procedures, while raising awareness of the importance of intellectual property rights and the best methods to protect those rights.”
- With an annual government investment of up to $3.8 billion in innovation, the country is paving the way for future innovators – for example, conducting system-wide education reforms that prioritize STEM curriculum and research and development.
The UAE is recognized for its commitment to innovation, ranking 36th in the 2019 Global Innovation Index rankings and among the top markets within the region. And they are seeing the payoffs in key innovation sectors such as health care products and services. Specific to biopharmaceuticals, for example, the UAE has invested in everything from world-class health care facilities to manufacturing to grow the market from $2.4 billion in 2015 to $3.1 billion in 2018, according to data from the UAE Federal Customs Authority.
The February 2020 WHO Executive Board meeting is an excellent opportunity for UAE to underscore the value of innovation and intellectual property on the global stage – and help to find real solutions to pressing global health challenges.
For example, UAE 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. UAE 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.
