The just concluded OECD High Level forum, held June 21 in Noordwijk in the Netherlands is, if it follows the agenda it has set for itself, to give political and perhaps financial impetus to the effort to WHO Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. Representatives of stakeholder communities: developing countries, and developed, NGOs, industry, biotech industry, funders, academics, think tanks, PDPs – joined the OECD Secretariat and the Government of the Netherlands, including for the early part of the meeting Queen Beatrix, in discussing policy coherence to enhance the availability of medicines for neglected and emerging infectious diseases. Though not all OECD member countries were present, (the USA was a notable absence), those who were gave useful political input, which may have currency.
The very full agenda did not allow as much discussion from the floor as would have been desirable, and we’ve already addressed the exclusion of NGOs form the panels in a previous blog. But, the meeting agreed a number of useful points. The most notable from our perspective:
The work of the OECD in the area of neglected and emerging infectious disease should not run parallel to the work of the WHO IGWG. Indeed speakers from developed and developing countries alike, were adamant that the paramount intergovernmental body in the area of health is the WHO, and as such to achieve policy coherence, it (she) should house efforts directed towards policy coherence for innovation and access, notably through the IGWG
To quote from the so-called “Draft Noordwijk Medicines Agenda”: The OECD acknowledges that…
“ The WHO Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) presents a unique opportunity to reach international agreement on an integrated framework for accelerating innovation and improving access to medicines in the developing world. As well as mobilizing more concerted efforts of governments, industry, research institutes and NGOs, such a framework would help strengthen coherence among international organizations and initiatives”
The Noordwijk Agenda went on to say that actions should focus on, among other things, …
“ Ensuring that there is sustained high level political support and adequate funding for the WHO IGWG activities, including implementation of the global strategy and plan of action”.
This is welcome news in view of the concerns raised in this regard by the IGWG Secretariat.
A second key action point made was that OECD countries should explore and evaluate for-profit and not-for-profit models to promote innovation and stimulated eh development of new medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected and emerging infectious diseases primarily affecting developing countries, in particular:
“ The potential value of sustainable collaborative mechanisms for IPRs (such as patent pools or other IP and data management entities)…” and
“Alternative policy models to reward innovation (e.g. advanced market commitments, prize fund models, valorisation of intellectual assets) to better understand how these could contribute to the development of medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for neglected and emerging infectious diseases. The strengths and limitations of alternative mechanisms could be considered, as well as monitoring pilot phases of existing mechanisms. This should involve empirical testing”
The Noordwijk Medical Agenda called for
“The use of existing flexibilities of multilateral agreements to foster innovation and access”
The Noordwijk Medicines Agenda calls for more, and work remains to be done to ensure coherence not only with other institutions, and not simply in reference to their work, but also with the contents of international agreements and resolutions of OECD Member States at other intergovernmental fora – notably those agreed at the WHO – including most recently WHA 59.24 and 60.30 – , the WTO, and keeping in the WIPO Development Agenda in plain sight. Policy coherence begins here.