Dr. Anthony So discussed how intellectual property rights heavily influence access to drugs. Normally, patents are suppose to provide assurance, but oftentimes the strategic use of intellectual property rights leads to tension between parties about sharing of information.
What are your thoughts concerning the debate about developing a cure to a pandemic (like SARS): should the cure be a public good or a private good?
What are the challenges to sharing information in the global arena?
Coming back to what Drs. Schuchat & So had mentioned in regards to competition of patent rights and how for example in our pseudo case of the onset of the “Pandemic of Chinese Flu” where China is not willing to share the virus sample to other countries who might have better capability to produce a vaccine. A historical example occurred with a patent race for the genomic sequence of SARS between public health ministries and private industry. Another more recent example is the ongoing legal battle over patents over the novel detection technology for breast cancer recently discussed at the Supreme Court level.
The rationale given by INN for China unwillingness to share the virus sample was the current lack of legal agreements for the guaranteed benefits of low cost and large supply in return from this sharing of viral sample material.
Do you think there should existing agreements in place to ensure rapid sharing & built-in guarantees?
What about the length of patent? Should they be shortened? But if it is how can you address the decrease profitability of producing a drug and potentially cause the pharmaceutical company to go under?