Big pharma approach to drug R&D challenged by UN panel

The world cannot rely solely onfree markets to deliver medicines needed by billions of peoplein poor countries, so governments should commit to a legallybinding convention to coordinate and fund research anddevelopment.

That's the conclusion of a major United Nations report,which is bound to stir fierce debate between supporters of thecurrent market-based system of drug development and thosefavouring a greater role for the state.

The high-level panel was set up last year by UNSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon to find solutions to the "policyincoherence" between the rights of inventors, internationalhuman rights law, trade rules and public health needs.

The issue has been given added urgency by the recent Ebolaand Zika outbreaks, two diseases centred on the developing worldwhere there has been little commercial incentive to developeither vaccines or treatments.

The final report, issued on Wednesday, calls for ade-linkage of R&D costs and drug prices at least in areaswhere the system is failing, such as tropical diseases and thehunt for new antibiotics against "superbug" resistant bacteria.

It urges the UN Secretary-General to start a process forgovernments to negotiate global agreements on the coordination,financing and development of priority research programmes.

"This includes negotiations for a binding R&D Conventionthat delinks the costs of research and development from endprices to promote access to good health for all," the reportsaid.

The report attacks the "implicit threats" it says aresometimes used by Western governments and companies to stoppoorer countries from exercising their right to over-ride drugpatents under World Trade Organization rules.

That may not go down well in Washington, given the UnitedStates' long-standing defence of the international intellectual

property system, which has governed world trade for more thantwo decades.

The panel also calls for greater transparency on the truecost of developing a new drug, citing estimates of anythingbetween $150 million US and $4 billion US per medicine. And it wantsdisclosure on the real prices paid by insurers and governmentsfor drugs, after discounts.

The UN panel consisted of representatives from government,academia, health activism and industry, under the leadership ofRuth Dreifuss and Festus Mogae, the former presidents ofSwitzerland and Botswana.

Not all the panel's members agreed with all its conclusions.GlaxoSmithKline Chief Executive Andrew Witty, one of

the panelists, expressed serious doubts about the proposed R&DConvention, given the difficulty of raising the very substantialfunds that would be needed from governments to make it work.