At April 28 WHO EB meeting, Brazil proposes work on R&D Treaty

Here is a link to the text of the WHO EB's draft resolution on the resport of the WHO Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH).

http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/who/WHOcipih280406.html

from the mini EB meeting on April 28. The US government apparently walked out of the meeting, unhappy with the direction of things. There are a lot of brackets. With the US off the EB until June, Japan reported did most of the pro-Big-Phrma advocacy at this meeting. The meeting was strangly off limits to the public -- the gallaries were closed. Some of us were in the area, however. Bill Steiger was in Moscow at a G8 meeting with US DHHS Secretary Michael Leavitt, and did not attend the EB negotiation.

The developing countries were reportedly pretty strong in the meeting, and some OECD members were not bad... the Netherlands in particular was given high marks. But they ran out of time, and everything will be reargued at the WHA meeting in May.

Kenya, Brazil and other developing countries decided to discuss the CIPIH resolution as a separate matter from the early EB resolution on Global Framework for Essential Medical R&D, which will also be debated at the May WHA. There may or may not be an effort to merge the two. The CIPIH report covers a much wider range of issues, particularly in the areas of intellectual property rights and drug pricing.

(If you don't have time to read the whole 228 page CIPIH report, take a look at the report's greatest hits.

One issue that deserves much highlighting from the discussions of the 28th is this. Brazil proposed the following language for the CIPIH report:

(6) to initiate consultations on the possibility of elaborating a Framework Convention on Research Development and Innovation on Public Health in order to define priorities and financing alternatives on research, development and innovation in health.

This is the first time a country has formally proposed the WHO consider a treaty on medical R&D. In fact, now a number of countries are saying they will support starting work on an R&D framework convention. This is a stronger position than the one outlined in EB117.r13, which is more general.