UN drug patent pledge in return for discounts

5 April 2001

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has told the pharmaceuticalindustry that patent protection is necessary if treatments for diseases such as AIDS are to continue to be developed. He was speaking at a meeting convened at very short notice in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and kept secret, with the chief executives of Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline. Also invited was Merck & Co, but at the last minute the firm decided not to attend, said UN deputy spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva, reports the Associated Press.

The industry group told Dr Annan and other international agency leaders attending the meeting, including World Health Organization Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland, that they intend to continue and accelerate cutting prices substantially, with a special emphasis on the least developed countries, and "to continue to offer affordable medicines to other developing countries, on a country-by-country basis," said the UN Secretary General. In return, he said, "we affirmed to them that the intellectual property regime is essential if companies are going to have the incentive to do the research to produce effective medicines for these diseases."

Intellectual property protection "is key to bringing forward new medicines, vaccines and diagnostics urgently needed for the health of the world's poorest people," he said, but added that, at the same time, it is necessary to ensure that the needs of the poor are protected.

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