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TEDx Talks
Published: 2012-11-27
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m_9zzQKp3U
flying in two thousand and two a group of treatment activist met to discuss the early development of the airplane the Wright brothers in the beginning of the last century had for the first time managed to make one of those devices fly they also had taken out numerous patents on essential parts of the airplane they were not the only ones that was common practice in the industry
and those who help patents on airplanes were defending them fiercely ensuing competitors left and right this actually wasn't so great for the development of the aviation industry and this was at the time but in particular the US government was interested in ramping up the production of military airplanes so there was a bit of a conflict there US government decided to take action and forced those patent
holders to make their patents available share with others to enable the production of %HESITATION of airplanes so what is this got to do with this in two thousand and two no personal trauma a Kenyan social scientist discovered he had HIV and need to access treatment he was told that the cure did not exist gates you heard was lethal the treatment was not offered this was at
the time the treatment actually existed in rich countries aides had become a chronic disease people in our country's here in Europe and North America we're living with HIV healthy lives not so for Nelson he wasn't rich enough and not so for his three year old son he discovered a year later also have HIV Nelson decided to become a treatment activists I joined up with other groups
in two thousand and two they we're facing a different battle prices for a our fees the drugs needed to treat HIV cost about twelve thousand per patient per year the patents on those trucks were held by a number of western pharmaceutical companies bomb that were not necessarily willing to make those patents available when you have a patent you can exclude anyone else from making %HESITATION from
from producing or making low cost versions for example a favorable off those of those medications clearly this let's two patent wars breaking out all over the globe luckily those patents did not exist everywhere there were countries that did not recognize pharmaceutical product patent such as India an Indian pharmaceutical companies started to produce so called generic versions low cost copies off anti retroviral medicines and make them
to fail available in the developing world and within the year the price have come down from ten thousand dollars per patient per year to three hundred and fifty dollars per patient per year and today that same trip poll pill cocktail is available for sixty dollars per patient per year and of course that started to have an enormous effect on the number of people who could fort
SS to those medicines treatment programs became possible funding became available and the number of people on anti retroviral drugs started to increase very up rapidly today eight billion people have access to antiretroviral drugs thirty four million are infected with HIV never hostage number been so high but actually this is good news because what it means is people still dying people who have access to these drugs
stop dying and they're something else they also stop passing on the virus this is fairly recent science to have shown that what that means is we have to tools to break the back of this epidemic so what's the problem well things have changed first a full the rules have changed today all countries are obliged to provide patents for pharmaceuticals that lasts at least twenty years this
is as a result of the but intellectual property rules of the World Trade Organization so what India did is no longer possible second practice of happened holding companies have changed here you see patent practices before the world trade organization's rules before ninety five for antiretroviral drugs this is what you see today and this is a developing country so what that means is unless we do something
deliberate and unless we do something now we will very soon be faced with another drug price crisis because new trucks are developed new trucks go to market but this better since our patent in a much wider range of countries so unless we act unless we do something today we will soon be faced with some half term the treatment of time it isn't only the number of
drugs that are patent there something else that can really scare generic manufacturers away this show shoe a patent landscape this is the landscape of what medicine so you can imagine that if you are a generic company about to decide where to invest in the development of this product unless you know that the licenses to these patterns are actually going to be available you will probably choose
to do something else again deliberate action is needed so surely if patent pool could be established to ramp up the production of military airplanes we should be able to do something similar tackle the HIV aids the damage and we did in two thousand and ten unitary it established the medicines Patton pool for HIV and this is how it works patent holders inventors to develop new medicines
patent does inventions but make those patents available to the medicines paten pulled the medicines popping pull the license does how to ever need access to those patents it can be generic manufacturers it can also be non for profit drug development agencies for example those manufacturers can then sell those medicines have much lower cost to people who need access to them to treatment programs at the tax
system they pay royalties over to sales to the patent holder so they are remunerated for sharing their intellectual property various one key difference with the airplane patent pool the medicines Patton pool is a voluntary mechanism the airplane patent holders were not left a choice whether they license their patents or not they were forced to do so and that is something that the maddest patent pool cannot
do it relies on the willingness a pharmaceutical companies to license our patents and make them available for others of for others to use today Nelson Obama is healthy he has access to antiretroviral drugs his son will soon be fourteen years old Nelson is a member of the expert advisory group off the medicines patentable and he told me not so long ago along we rely in Kenya
and in many other countries on the medicines Patton pull to make sure that new medicines also become available to us that new medicines without delay become available to us and this is no longer fantasy already %HESITATION all give you an example it August of this year United States struck agency approved a new four in one H. medication the company gilia that holds the patents has licensed
licensed intellectual property to the medicines Patton who pull is already working today two months later which America manufacturers to make sure that this product can go to market at low cost where and when it is needed this is unprecedented that this has never been done before the rule is about a ten year delay for a new product to go to market in developing countries if I
told this has never been seen before Nelson's expectations are very high and quite rightly so he had a son will meet access to the next generation and to ritual files and the next throughout their lifetime so that he and many others in Kenya and other countries can continue to live a healthy active life's now we count on the willingness of drug companies to make that happen
we count on those companies that understand that it is in the interests not only of interest of the global good but also in their own interest to move from conflict to collaboration true the medicines paten pulled a comic that happened they can also choose not to do that but date those to go down that road may end up in a similar situation to Wright brothers and
