Issue Update: Amid patient concerns, patent issues take top priority at the World Health Organization.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has been intensely debating intellectual property (IP) rights issues, has restructured its management of the issues, elevating IP to the director general’s office. A new team for public health, innovation and intellectual property has been created. (1)

This move follows the close of the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG), which adjourned with no agreed strategy or plan of action amidst concerns raised by patient groups that the issue has become polarized and that the IGWG process has gone off-track.

“The WHO is focusing on two main barriers to patients receiving effective treatments – lack of innovative therapies and lack of access to therapies that have been developed. IAPO (International Alliance of Patient Organizations) agrees with this, but feels strongly that it does not go far enough. We need to focus on the lack of access to healthcare overall, which needs to be addressed if this WHO initiative is to have an impact on patients’ lives” . (2)

Many barriers stand in the way of poor people seeking medical care, according to Partners in Health – a non-profit organization focused on the delivery of quality healthcare in poor communities. These include: transportation costs, social stigma, lack of information, discrimination by medical personnel, and shortage of time. (3)

“Numerous studies, including the WHO’s, show that the most important barrier to the poor getting medicines is lack of medical staff and infrastructure to administer the drugs.” (4)

Even when pharmaceutical companies have offered drugs for free, African countries still had severe problems in storing the drugs and distributing them. Hospitals lack doctors, nurses, equipment and sometimes even electricity to effectively administer available medication. Roads are often in disrepair, making it particularly difficult to reach rural populations, where disease rates are the highest. (5)

The goal of the WHO Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) to stimulate R&D for diseases endemic to poor or developing countries has received broad support from industry, patient groups and government. What affect the restructuring of the IGWG will have on the scope and focus of the discussion on intellectual property issues remains to be seen. Regardless, more work will be needed to complete this process before the next World Health Assembly in May 2008.