Global Access To University-Derived Medicines

Nicholas Stine writes, "Universities should make their patented biomedical innovations accessible to those in poor countries, according to a consensus statement signed by dozens of international global health leaders. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, a student group active at over 30 universities in North America, drafted the Philadelphia Consensus Statement urging universities to adopt licensing policies that would facilitate access to all university-derived medicines in developing countries. Notable signatories include 28 non-governmental organizations, four Nobel laureates, Justice Edwin Cameron of the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health."

This is a horrible idea!

The problem is that the Universities are not the ones manufacturing these life saving medicines and processes, it's the drug companies. Asking Universities to provide access to their discoveries would reduce the value of their discoveries on the open market (since there'd now be multiple companies licensed to sell the product, one of which may not have needed to pay for the right). In such a scenario, what incentive does the research institute have to develop the drugs and medical devices other than government grants?

The Consensus statement suggests that Universities should be "engaging with nontraditional partners, such as public-private partnerships or developing country institutions, creating new opportunities for drug development, and carving out neglected disease research exemptions in any university patents or licenses". So in other words, instead of selling their patents and discoveries to drug companies, they should be giving it away? What incentive would one of these "nontraditional partners" have to sell a $50 drug for $.05 when they could sell it on the black market for $5.00?

Drugs will not solve the long term problems in developing countries, they'll just make them worse. Many of these countries do not have the natural resources to handle their populations. This lack of resources leads to many of the diseases that our drugs are supposed to fix (plus many other problems, such as the constant wars and corruption present in Africa). Sending them cheap drugs puts more strain on existing resources, since more people are able to survive in an area that can't support them. We need to attack the root cause of their problems: corruption, overpopulation, lack of education (particularly sex education), and sanitation. Once these are solved/improved, the need for access to new miracle drugs is greatly reduced.

In short, the consortium is barking up the wrong tree. They should be trying to pursuade drug manufacturers to ship more reduced/free products to these third world countries. That would provide the benefits they are looking for, while not reducing the drug's value and risking future research investments. I'm not saying this is a great idea either, but it doesn't nearly the same negative impact as giving away the patent or production methods.

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I agree. Over population is hurting Africa more than anything.

Re:This is a horrible idea!

Yup, all those university professors who studied for at least 10 years in order to be in a position to do medical research will become horribly disincentived. They're all going to quit and go work a McJob instead.

Ok, now that you might be back to reality- if you're a university professor, your main motivation is not money. If it was, you would be in industry. Or more likely, gotten a law degree instead of a degree in medicine or microbiology. The people working these jobs aren't going to quit because they're suddenly not making a fortune. Hell, they weren't making a fortune anyway- the university was.

The fact is that some things are more important than money (actually, I can't think of anything less important than money, but thats for another time). There are people dieing that don't need to, because they can't afford drugs which already exist. Not because its expensive/difficult to make the drug, but because patents prevent alternative manufacturers from doing so. This is not acceptable.

Furthermore, this is university research. Over 95% of it is paid for with public money- money given to them by government grants. If the public is already paying for it, the public should have full benefits of the discovery. There is no excuse for taking my tax dollars for research, and then forcing me to pay Pheizer or Merks for the results of that research. All research at public universities or using government money should be public domain.

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A University with no funds will have no money, if it has no money it won't stay open, if it's not open it's not doing any research. Research is a major income for many Universities around the world. Nobody in their right mind is going to make an investment

Why shouldn't we get paid for our work?

While I agree our main motivation is not money (if it was, we wouldn't have chosen science), why shouldn't we get paid money. We got paid nothing during our five years of graduate school. We got paid nothing during our five year-year post-doc. We certainly don't get rich running a lab. Why shouldn't we make money off of something we spent years of our lives working on?

What I don't understand is why it's okay for people to go into just about every other career for the money, but if someone in science decides to make a buck they're evil. I made ~16k per year while a graduate student. My friends who went into business made ~60k out of college. Five years later I made ~40k as a post-doc (on the high-end of the salary scale). My friends were up to 100k. As an Assistant Professor I make ~70k (on the high end). All of my friends from college make over 100k, and most make over 150k. My work isn't easier either. I put in a minimum of 60 hours per week, and when writing grants I often put in 80+ hours. My friends who are making over 100k per year - a 'tough week' is one where they work over 50 hours. If a scientist put in the blood, sweat, and tears to produce a patent that actually produces money (most don't), then all the more power to them. And people wonder why the younger (American) generation aren't interested in a career in science.

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We got paid nothing during our five years of graduate school. We got paid nothing during our five year-year post-doc. We certainly don't get rich running a lab. Why shouldn't we make money off of something we spent years of our lives working on?

Last time I

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Last time I looked (like on my monthly statement), a post-doc is a salaried position, and pretty well paid too.

Uh, maybe compared to the average college summer job, but post-docs are NOT well-paid by just about any market-based comparison. Most probably m

Leech!

Because your funding is coming from the Government, not from yourself!!!

I REALLY resent all of the University profs who get their money from Government grants, patent something, make a ton of money, and NONE of it goes back to the Taxpayer. You're basicall

Supply and Demand at work

Yep, you read the subject right. It's the law of supply and demand at work.

See, people choose science careers because they *like* science. It's got a number of nonfinancial perks and rewards, such as being interesting, inciting passion, and satisfying a d

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This was true up to a certain point in time. What has happened in the last twenty or so years is that funding for science has plunged relative to the overall research needs.
What used to be:
People got a PhD or MD and went on to do research. People used to g

Re:Why shouldn't we get paid for our work?

Perhaps you don't deserve the big bucks from patents because you're working for a huge employer, and very few employees who work for huge employers ever get rich off of the product they've spent years of their lives working on.

We paid you, we supported your research, we should own the result. If you want to own the result, then feel free to go start up your own lab and look for the venture capital to fund your research just like every other person who wants to strike out into business for themselves. You knew when you entered academia that it was a cushy job with a nice pension (wouldn't want to forget that since they're virtually non-existent in the private sector). You're getting a better deal than virtually every private sector peon gets, so quit your whining.

No, they just won't be able to pay for the

$100,000 instruments, the $50,000/year grad students and post-docs, and the tens of thousands in lab maintanence fees that are necessary in order to get the work done.

These activists are hopelessly native about the scientific process. In the medical fi

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Activists such as these (and everyone else who complains about drug prices) just needs to get over the fact that SCIENCE IS EXPENSIVE, and that someone has to pay for it."

Sure, I'll get over it the day the pharmaceuticals are actually spending their money

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They're all going to quit and go work a McJob instead.

If the private funding for these researchers dries up, many of them will be in McJobs. Medical research isn't like other kinds of science research - it's profitable, so companies put money into it.

Better Ideas

So what you're saying is that drug corporations should have to open up their IP, too. That their patents create artificial monopolies built on investments by the public, often from traditional development of material and techniques. That their corporate pr

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Parent said "Asking Universities to provide access to their discoveries would reduce the value of their discoveries on the open market..." and then: "They should be trying to pursuade drug manufacturers to ship more reduced/free products to these third wor

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but a for-profit company is unlikely to voluntarily do anything that could imaginably restrict their profits, even if only by a small amount.

I agree that putting a clause as you suggest in the licensing agreement probably wouldn't lower the value of the ag

Not a horrible idea at all

Im picking on you here, but there are others whose responses are equally off-target.

Read the Consensus Statement [essentialmedicine.org] again. Closely.

Then start to realise that the purpose of this Consensus statement isnt to jack your profits or make your hard work all for noug

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In such a scenario, what incentive does the research institute have to develop the drugs and medical devices other than government grants?

The same that they have now - none. Drugs and medical devices are largely developed on government money, because there

Re:This is a horrible idea!

If we did this, who would invest the Billions necessary to research and produce these drugs? You or I can likely live very happily without worrying too much about money, but corporations cannot create wealth out of thin air. In areas like software, I agree that most patents should be "free and open". In healthcare, patents are what enables drug companies to make enough money to invest in future drugs. Without protection that patents offer drug manufacturers, it is likely that private investment would dwindle to almost nothing, leaving our government (via higher taxes) to pick up the tab (unless you are suggesting we don't need any future drugs or medical devices ... which is an entirely different discussion).

Re:This is a horrible idea!

Actually, there is already quite a bit of public money invested in biomedical research. The NIH budget is about 28 billion dollars [nih.gov] (one of the major reasons why the U.S. is a world research leader, by the way).

Currently, universities are encouraged to patent innovations created with federal funding and make money off those patents, thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act [economist.com]. This statement calls on universities to open up their patents when doing so could help the developing world. It does not appear to call for any changes in how public money is spent -- only in what is done with the products of that public investment.

Re:This is a horrible idea!

Personally I feel that universities should be free to patent at will but they should be required to disclose the percentage of the research that was funded form public grants and that percentage of any profit derrived from the patent should be given back to the grant giving agency to fund future research. This way the cycle becomes self feeding. This way there is no conflict of ownership between research that is funded both publicly and privately the university gets to continue to recieve grants and do more research and increase their fame while attracting more distinguished faculty.

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I wish I had mod points, as this is a FANTASTIC idea.

Re:This is a horrible idea!

Although this sounds like a good idea, I don't think it would actually help. The major argument for the Bayh-Dole Act is that it gives universities an incentive to move patented discoveries into the applied realm where they may do some good; otherwise the patents languish underutilized. A major argument against it is that federally funded research ought to be in the public domain. Your plan would create the worst of both worlds: federally funded research would be protected by patents but never get turned into useful products.

Besides, most universities reinvest a large portion of their licensing money into research anyway, so the cycle is largely self-feeding already.

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and that percentage of any profit derrived from the patent should be given back to the grant giving agency to fund future research,

Ok, suppose some compound was discovered which showed some promise as a lead for a cure for cancer. It was 100% government f

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What incentives to Drug companies have now?...

as someone just said; 4 different ways to make your penis stiff.

The placebos in the Cold Symptom isle at the drug store are part of a multi-billion dollar market. Couple this with the rise in spending on advert

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I wish there is a way to tag this article 'the comments in this thread reduce my faith in humanity'.

For crying out loud, no one's robbing anyone. It's not like third world countries are a massive component of profits. Even if we tax to pay for this, i.e. t

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One...

Two...

You forgot three: all the above.

And in other news...

University funding plummets as drug companies refuse to allow others to reduce their profits by giving away the fruits of research for which they paid. Nice sentiment. Terrible idea.

Re:And in other news...

Followed by drug development plummeting because the universities quit doing the research studies the drug companies used.

Followed by everyone being wiped out by the flu, but at least they had 5 choices of drugs for making their dick hard until the very end.

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University funding plummets as drug companies refuse to allow others to reduce their profits by giving away the fruits of research for which they paid.

Except that their profits won't be reduced under the Equitable Access License.

It doesn't force drug manuf

Fat Chance

Some of these universities have made hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments from the pharma companies. You think they are going to give up that gravy train so that dark people won't suffer and die? Universities are run by classic Limousine L

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"Dark people"? I would hope that you could come up with a better discriminator than the color of their skin! I shall make sure that I tell my 'dark' friends in seattle that they're going to suffer and die due to the universities greed.

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Methinks you missed my sarcasm noted to telling my 'dark' friends. But let me spell this out for you, you seem to need further elaboration. The point being made was that not all 'dark people' will be affected by the lack of free medication as just a few, a

unfair

Only about half of all medical research is privately funded, yet most new medicines end up being patented and owned by private companies. Shouldn't the people (US! the public!) who pay for the research be the ones who decide how it is used? In a democratic society, the people would actually own what they pay for and would choose to use it for the good of the worlds population. Too bad we live in a corporate oligarchy. We subsidize (or socialize if that's your bad word) the costs and risks of research, but we privatize the benefits so that only a few rich shareholders can profit while millions die of preventable diseases. We need a revolution.

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In a democratic society, the people would actually own what they pay for and would choose to use it for the good of the worlds population.

Then don't sell it! Just keep it in the NIH and develop it all the way to market. But don't sell a license to a com

Re:unfair

The NIH alone contributed 28% of medical research funds in 2005 [medpagetoday.com]. There are other sources of state and federal funds. My statistical source for the roughly half number is from an article in Wired magazine (I couldn't find it online; do a lexus nexus search if your school or workplace will pay for it ;-)). It stated that government money previously provided for the majority of the funding for medical research, and government funding for health science has increased, but industry funding has increased faster, so now private funds account for just over half. Not for profit private foundations also provide some funding (I've seen 10% attributed to them). Whatever the exact numbers, it should be clear that the fruits of this research is excessively ending up in for profit hands.

Universities don't make drugs

Last time I checked, Universities don't make drugs. Doing the research on which a drug is based is the cheap/easy part. Taking a lead compound through development, animal testing, Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 Clinical Trials is the expensive/hard part. Un

This reminds me...

This reminds me of my petition that everybody capable of contributing to the development of lifesaving drugs drop whatever their current career is--be it software developer, accountant, homemaker, whatever--and dedicate the rest of their lives to developing lifesaving medicines.

Because, hey, if we can, then it's immoral not to.

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This reminds me of my petition that everybody capable of contributing to the development of lifesaving drugs drop whatever their current career is--be it software developer, accountant, homemaker, whatever--and dedicate the rest of their lives to developi

I guess the poor "deserve" everything now

So somehow as a taxpayer in the U.S.A. who funded that research I should still be charged outrageous skyrocketing prices if I need it, but somehow people in foregin countries somehow deserve it more than I do and should have it given to them? I might well accept an argument that public funded medical research should have certain restrictions put on it's prices, but those restrictions should start with saying that the taxpayers who funded it should be charged no more than others who did not fund it (including Canadians and Europeans), not allow the patent holders to charge even more locally to offset giving the stuff away to "the poor". Lets not even get into discussions of how such giveaways usually enrich a corrupt government and seldom get to the targeted people, it's not even relivant in this case.

As A Taxpayer...

...And by definition a funder of university drug research in SOME cases, I have a significant problem with this idea (that drug I pay to have created are forced to be sold cheaper somewhere else). And I am sure that should such silliness be attempted, a re

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I have a significant problem with this idea (that drug I pay to have created are forced to be sold cheaper somewhere else).

But apparently you don't mind that the drugs you pay to have created are patented by someone else, huh? They take our money, use it t

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Except, of course, for the people who can't afford some patented treatment because the lack of competition is keeping the price out of their reach. But who cares about them, right?

Uh, how many drugs are on the market without ANY competition? Most drugs co

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Uh, how many drugs are on the market without ANY competition?

There is no competition for the production of a patented drug; that's the whole purpose of patents.

Most drugs compete with cheap medications - but people aren't satisfied with the cheap meds beca

In other words

People who want free stuff say: "give stuff away for free"

So basically...

...everybody signed the declaration except the actual people doing and paying for the drug research.

In other news, Slashdot readers signed a petition for free computers while drivers signed another for free gas.

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It's the "expert syndrome". Too many highly intelligent people think that because they are an expert in one field, they are automatically qualified in another field. Thus you have physicists signing petitions for medical or global warming causes, thinkin

Adult film producers.. a dime a dozen

> These guys are always attaching their names to feel-good petitions and liberal/left wing causes.

So says 'Adult film producer ' ?!?

Perhaps the 'liberal / left wing' attracts those with higher IQs and knee jerk tough guy high school libertarian response

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Even more, they get to claim a moral high ground, knowing it won't cost *them* anything. It's a highbrow way of saying "Hell yeah, I'm for helping the poor! You go first, won't you, buddy? I'm a little light this week."

BTW, ever notice that the countries t