Raising the Barriers to Access to Medicines in the Developing World – The Relentless Push for Data Exclusivity

This article illustrates how the pharmaceutical industry has convinced the US and the EU to impose data exclusivity on their trade partners, many of them developing countries. The key arguments formulated by the pharmaceutical industry in favor of adopting data exclusivity and their underlying ethical assumptions are described in this article, analyzed, and found to be unconvincing. Contrary to industry's arguments, it is unlikely that data exclusivity will promote innovation, especially in developing countries. Moreover, the industry's appeal to a property rights claim over clinical test data and the idea that data exclusivity can prevent the generic competitors from ‘free‐riding’ encounters some important problems: Neither legitimize excluding all others.

Source: Developing World Bioethics - December 1, 2015 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Lisa Diependaele, Julian Cockbain, Sigrid Sterckx Tags: Original Article Source Type: research