MEDICINE PATENT POOL

MEDICINE PATENT POOL

Subject: International Relations / S&T

Context: Responding to anti-TRIPS activism from low-income countries and realising they would not be able to profit off of low-income markets anyway, some manufacturers placed licensing agreements to produce AIDS drugs for which they owned patent rights in the UN-affiliated Medicines Patent Pool.

Concept:

• The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a Unitaid-backed international organisation founded in July 2010, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Its public health driven business model aims to lower the prices of HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C medicines and facilitate the development of better-adapted HIV treatments through voluntary licensing and patent pooling.
• Its goal is to improve access to affordable and appropriate HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).
• Economics research finds evidence that the pool increases generic diffusion in LMIC and upstream innovation.
• In May 2020, the MPP become an implementing partner of the WHO’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP).

C- TAP

• Thirty countries and multiple international partners and institutions have signed up to support the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP).
• C-TAP is an initiative aimed at making vaccines, tests, treatments and other health technologies to fight COVID-19 accessible to all.
• The COVID-19 (Technology) Access Pool will be voluntary and based on social solidarity. It will provide a one-stop shop for scientific knowledge, data and intellectual property to be shared equitably by the global community.
• With supportive countries across the globe, C-TAP will serve as a sister initiative to the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and other initiatives to support efforts to fight COVID-19 worldwide.