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.
This article is accessible to registered users, to continue reading please register for free. A free trial will give you access to exclusive features, interviews, round-ups and commentary from the sharpest minds in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology space for a week. If you are already a registered user please login. If your trial has come to an end, you can subscribe here.
Login to your accountTry before you buy
7 day trial access
Become a subscriber
Or £77 per month
The Pharma Letter is an extremely useful and valuable Life Sciences service that brings together a daily update on performance people and products. It’s part of the key information for keeping me informed
Chairman, Sanofi Aventis UK
Copyright © The Pharma Letter 2024 | Headless Content Management with Blaze