{"id":7843,"date":"2010-02-06T00:03:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T00:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moomango.co.uk\/htb\/?p=7843"},"modified":"2013-08-06T08:23:20","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T08:23:20","slug":"unitaid-decision-to-fund-patent-pool-to-boost-access-to-new-medicines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/7843","title":{"rendered":"UNITAID decision to fund \u0091patent pool\u0092 to boost access to new medicines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>UNITAID and MSF press\u00a0releases<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>On 15 December 2009, UNITAID, an international health financing agency, agreed to fund a licensing agency that will be able to administer a patent pool\u00a0for AIDS medicines.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This will offer licenses to generic manufacturers, and has the potential to reduce prices and facilitate the combination of drugs from different makers\u00a0into fixed-dose combinations. This first step with mean that formal negotiations with drug companies can hopefully now begin.<\/p>\n<p>UNITAID has identified 19 products from nine companies for potential inclusion into the pool.\u00a0 Companies that UNITAID has already consulted include\u00a0Gilead, Tibotec, Merck and Sequoia.<\/p>\n<p>This programme is supported by the Medecins Sans Frontiers\u0092 Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. \u0093This is an important decision, but the pool will be\u00a0judged on its outcome for patients,\u0094 said Michelle Childs, Director of Policy &amp; Advocacy at MSF. \u0093We\u0092ve been encouraged by the positive responses from a\u00a0number of companies to our campaign in support of the pool. \u00a0Now that the pool has been given a green light, patent holders need to move from expressions\u00a0of general support to firm and formal license commitments. \u00a0We urge them to do so. This needs to happen fast, as the clock is ticking for millions of<br \/>\npatients.\u0094<\/p>\n<p>\u0093The Board has confirmed that this pool is for all developing countries, but as this is a voluntary mechanism, the ultimate outcome will depend on the\u00a0decisions of patent holders. Countries can still use the legal mechanisms at their disposal such as compulsory licensing and pro-health patent laws to\u00a0ensure people have access to the life-saving medicines they need.\u0094<\/p>\n<p>Source: MSF and UNITAID press releases, (14\/15 Dec 2009).<\/p>\n<p>UNITAID Executive board approves breakthrough plan to make AIDS treatment more widely available at lower cost: patent pool could save over one billion\u00a0dollars a year.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.unitaid.eu\/en\/The-Medicines-Patent-Pool-Initiative.html\">http:\/\/www.unitaid.eu\/en\/The-Medicines-Patent-Pool-Initiative.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UNITAID and MSF press\u00a0releases On 15 December 2009, UNITAID, an international health financing agency, agreed to fund a licensing agency that will be able to administer a patent pool\u00a0for AIDS medicines. This will offer licenses to generic manufacturers, and has &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-treatment-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}