Increasing healthcare access in the world’s poorest nations
Last week, the pharmaceutical juggernaut GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it does not intend to file patents in many of the world’s most underdeveloped countries. In doing so, the British-based GSK will open up the playing field for independent manufacturers to fabricate and sell their more affordable generic versions of the drugs.
In conjunction with the United Nations and the World Bank, a total of 51 countries were chosen to be patent-free, and will grant an additional 34 countries the legal ability to replicate GSK’s drugs for a small royalty.
Generally, if a company doesn’t have a patent on a particular drug, they risk being sued for replicating another company’s drugs. Therefore, developing nations are a battleground of red tape when it comes to the right to sell pharmaceuticals and vaccines. GSK’s move opens up the playing field in a market of about 2 billion people.
“By doing this we’re taking away one potential issue or excuse…which is that generic companies hold back because they don’t know what intellectual property exists,” said GSK chief executive Andrew Witty.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]…generally lowered the prices of HIV pharmaceuticals…[/pullquote]
Witty cited the example of the company’s methods in India, their largest market. GSK has a few patents there, but instead of focusing on intellectual property rights, they lowered their prices in order to compete with off-brand pharmaceutical companies.
It is not only a question of access to medication, but of affordability. Many cutting-edge cancer therapies are out of the question for people in developing countries due to their costs. GSK’s next move, backed by the United Nations, is to work alongside other pharmaceutical companies to grant licences through the Medicines Patent Pool. This will allow smaller generic drug companies to create cheaper versions of HIV, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis vaccines and treatment.
Prof. Raymond Hill, visiting professor at Imperial College London, praised GSK’s announcement as a breakthrough in access to pharmaceuticals across the globe.
“The impact of this move on the treatment of cancer and other diseases in each individual country will depend on whether there is a local adequate healthcare infrastructure that will allow the safe use of powerful new drugs,” said Hill.
GSK’s announcement has received some backlash over how much their patent leniency will actually positively affect people’s access to pharmaceuticals in developing countries. Critics argue that GSK can’t enforce their patents in many of the world’s least developed countries, so the announcement is more of an attempt at good public relations rather than a charity move.
However, under Witty’s leadership GSK has generally lowered the prices of HIV pharmaceuticals, among others, in developing countries. The company was fined $300 million in China in 2013 for controversial sales practices. Since then, GSK has effectively restructured sales practices, with an emphasis on pricing drugs based on a country’s current market, in order to compete with domestic companies.
According to Rohit Malpani, director of policy and advocacy for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the World Trade Organization already has an agreement in place that allows many of the world’s poorest countries freedom from patent protection laws until 2033.
Malpani argued that decisions such as this should be up to governments, not multinationals.