As the 126th session of the Executive Board (EB) of the World Health Organization unfolds today, it appears that the EB will consider agenda item 4.3 on Public health, innovation and intellectual property: Global strategy and plan of action. Under scrutiny will be the work of the Expert Working Group on research and development financing which is mandated by resolution WHA61.21
The following is a letter sent by Cecilia López Montaño, a member of the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing to the WHO Executive Board:
Dear members of the Executive Board:
I am Cecilia López Montaño, senator of the Colombian Congress and member of the Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing of the World Health Organization, in representation of the point of view of developing countries, I assume.
At the proverbial 11th hour today, the World Health Organization published the final report of the “World Health Organization Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing” in English three days before the commencement of the 126th session of the WHO Executive Board on January 18, 2010. At this juncture, it does not appear that the WHO Secretariat has made available official versions of this Report in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish for Member States’ consideration.
The World Health Organization’s Expert Working Group on R&D Financing spent scant attention on how to raise money, but showed considerable interest in how to spend it. The clear favorite approach is to give grants to product development partnerships — the approach that has now become the most conventional approach, and one not surprisingly endorsed by the PDPs themselves, and also by the Gates Foundation and the IFPMA — two groups that are often seen as devoted to protecting the status quo in terms of intellectual property and business models for innovation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board will soon consider the Executive Summary of the Report of the Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing, a document, formally identified as EB 126/6 Add.1.
In the section of the report on “Funding allocation proposals,” the EWG considers two types of innovation inducement prizes, including
31 (c) milestone prizes; and
31 (d) end-prizes (cash)
Some surprising taxes, and evidence of IFPMA lobbying
On January 11, 2010, the Washington office of Google hosted a deb Continue Reading
New documents have been published on the WHO website in relation to the third meeting of the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing that took place from November 30 to December 2, 2009. These six documents are available at:
http://www.who.int/phi/ewg3rdmeet/en/index.html
The first document is: Comparative Review of Innovative Financing Proposals for Health R&D
The second document is: Coordinating Arrangements for R&D [doc 352kb]
USTR has issued an announcement for new procedures including public hearings on the 2010 Special 301 list. This is an effort to make the 301 process somewhat more open, and to provide more formal opportunities to both supporters and critics of USTR’s bilateral trade pressures to make their case. USTR’s actions are welcomed by several NGOs that have been critical of the unilateral trade pressures initiative, as it seems to provide the beginning of a more mature discussion about the objectives of trade policy, and the evidence to support different positions. Continue Reading
On February 8, 2010, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will hold a ” Symposium on the Evolution of the Regulatory Framework of Test Data – From the Property of the Intellect to the Intellect of Property“.