Benefits of incremental innovation for global health highlighted by IFPMA

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) yesterday launched a new report, titled Incremental Innovation: Adapting to Patient Needs, which can be seen in full on the trade group’s web site: www.ifpma.org.

The report emphasizes the importance of incremental innovation in improving medicines, explaining its scientific rationale, its medical value, and the economic incentives needed for its development. In highlighting the important role of patents in stimulating research on improved medicines, the report is also relevant to the discussions on patents and health currently taking place at the 19th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP).

Incremental innovation widens treatment options available to health care providers and adapts medicines better to patients’ needs. This process is marked by expanding the number of medicines within a therapeutic class, increasing the number of available dosing options, discovering new physiological interactions, and improving other properties of existing medicines. Such innovations often require as much research and development (R&D) and clinical trial investments as first-in-class medicines.