Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Incentivizing Access and Innovation for Essential Medicines: A Survey of the Problem and Proposed Solutions

Incentivizing Access and Innovation for Essential Medicines: A Survey of the Problem and Proposed... The existing intellectual property regime discourages the innovation of, and access to, essential medicines for the poor in developing countries. A successful proposal to reform the existing system must address these challenges of access and innovation. This essay will survey the problems in the existing pharmaceutical patent system and offer critical analysis of some reform proposals. I will argue that existing mechanisms that are intended to mitigate the harms of the current pharmaceutical patent system, such as bulk buying, differential pricing and compulsory licenses, are inadequate and perhaps even counter-productive over the long-term. Other incentive mechanisms based on push funding, such as government research grants, are inefficient and limited in scope. Pull mechanisms, which offer some reward for successful pharmaceutical innovations, offer a more promising incentive mechanism. I will evaluate three pull mechanisms -- Priority Review Vouchers, Advance Market Commitment (AMC) and the Health Impact Fund -- on the basis of their capacity to incentivize access and innovation, as well as their efficiency and political feasibility. Though the Health Impact Fund appears to be the most promising proposal, more work must be done to overcome challenges of its implementation. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Public Health Ethics Oxford University Press

Incentivizing Access and Innovation for Essential Medicines: A Survey of the Problem and Proposed Solutions

Ravvin, Michael
Public Health Ethics , Volume 1 (2) – Jul 4, 2008
Download PDF
14 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/incentivizing-access-and-innovation-for-essential-medicines-a-survey-8QXNdLeoSE

References (16)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. Available online at www.phe.oxfordjournals.org
Subject
Original Article
ISSN
1754-9973
eISSN
1754-9981
DOI
10.1093/phe/phn017
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The existing intellectual property regime discourages the innovation of, and access to, essential medicines for the poor in developing countries. A successful proposal to reform the existing system must address these challenges of access and innovation. This essay will survey the problems in the existing pharmaceutical patent system and offer critical analysis of some reform proposals. I will argue that existing mechanisms that are intended to mitigate the harms of the current pharmaceutical patent system, such as bulk buying, differential pricing and compulsory licenses, are inadequate and perhaps even counter-productive over the long-term. Other incentive mechanisms based on push funding, such as government research grants, are inefficient and limited in scope. Pull mechanisms, which offer some reward for successful pharmaceutical innovations, offer a more promising incentive mechanism. I will evaluate three pull mechanisms -- Priority Review Vouchers, Advance Market Commitment (AMC) and the Health Impact Fund -- on the basis of their capacity to incentivize access and innovation, as well as their efficiency and political feasibility. Though the Health Impact Fund appears to be the most promising proposal, more work must be done to overcome challenges of its implementation.

Journal

Public Health Ethics – Oxford University Press

Published: Jul 4, 2008

There are no references for this article.