AIDS drugs patent pool offers real hope for poor countries

1.05.00pm GMT Mon 30th Nov 2009

To mark World AIDS day (1 December) Members of the European Parliament have called for the EU institutions and member states to bring forward the introduction of a UNITAID patent pool to ensure availability and affordability of HIV medicines for AIDS sufferers in developing countries, the worst affected by the AIDS epidemic but with the least access to treatment

The patent pool would work through universities, drugs companies and other patent-holders making their patents available on a non-exclusive basis for use in poor countries. Rights-holders would receive royalties as normal, but this would be managed by a one-stop-shop licensing agency, considerably simplifying the current endless litigation. UNITAID will decide in December whether it will launch it.

Liberal Democrat European justice & human rights spokeswoman and London MEP Sarah Ludford said:

"More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981. Antiretroviral drugs that delay the onset of AIDS and much improve health can be very successful, but only one third of the 10 million people who need them have access to these medicines."

"That is why I have added my signature to a European Parliament call to support the UNITAID HIV/AIDS patent pool. If the whole European Parliament does so and urges other EU institutions, Member States and pharmaceutical companies to join the effort, we can make a difference."

ENDS

Note to editors

The mission of UNITAID, a World Health Organisation agency, is to contribute to scaling up access to treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, primarily for people in low-income countries, by leveraging price reductions for quality diagnostics and medicines and accelerating the pace at which these are made available, see http://www.unitaid.eu/