Incentives for Global Public Health: Patent Law and Access to Essential Medicines

1. TRIPS and essential medicines: must one size fit all? Making the WTO responsive to the global health crisis
2. The TRIPS Waiver as a recognition of public health concerns in the WTO
3. Public law challenges to the regulation of pharmaceutical patents in the US bilateral free trade agreements
4. Global health and development: patents and public interest
5. The Health Impact Fund: better pharmaceutical innovations at much lower prices
6. The Health Impact Fund: a critique
7. A prize system as a partial solution to the health crisis in the developing world
8. Innovation and insufficient evidence: the case for a WTO–WHO Agreement on Health Technology Safety and Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation
9. Opening the dam: patent pools, innovation and access to essential medicines
10. Open Source drug discovery: a revolutionary paradigm or a Utopian model?
11. Accessing and benefit sharing avian influenza viruses through the World Health Organization: a CBD and TRIPS compromise thanks to Indonesia’s sovereignty claim?
12. The Lazarus Effect: the (RED) Campaign and creative capitalism
13. Beyond TRIPS: the role of non-state actors and access to essential medicines
14. S e c u r i n g h e a l t h t h r o u g h r i g h t s
15. The role of national laws in reconciling constitutional right to health with TRIPS obligations: an examination of the Glivec patent case in India
16. Tipping point: Thai compulsory licences redefine essential medicines debate

This portrait of the global debate over patent law and access to essential medicines focuses on public health concerns about HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, the SARS virus, influenza, and diseases of poverty. The essays explore the diplomatic negotiations and disputes in key international fora, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Drawing upon international trade law, innovation policy, intellectual property law, health law, human rights and philosophy, the authors seek to canvass policy solutions which encourage and reward worthwhile pharmaceutical innovation while ensuring affordable access to advanced medicines. A number of creative policy options are critically assessed, including the development of a Health Impact Fund, prizes for medical innovation, the use of patent pools, open-source drug development and forms of 'creative capitalism'.