On the road to Liberty

Patents are often blamed for most of the problems afflicting the health care system. In this article published in the Montreal Gazette, on 21 April 2008, I point out that " Patents are not the problem " . By focusing on patents rather than the wider ills that seriously affect healthcare service to the poor, we will not help improve the lot of the ordinary patients. Thailand's health minister recently announced that the nation's state-run drug manufacturer, the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, would continue to violate the patents on four key cancer drugs. Health activists around the world applauded the move, apparently believing that intellectual property rights are an obstacle to bringing medicine to the world's poorest and sickest citizens. But drug patents and drug prices aren't the main obstacle to Third World patients seeking treatment. The truth is that even if medicine were completely free, most developing nations lack the infrastructure to de...

Brazil, China and India have all provided glimpses of their potential. Brazil has been talked of as a potential economic super power for over a generation now. China has greatly enhanced its prospect over the past two decades. India’s economic promise is beginning to attract attention in the past decade. While the prospect of economic growth and prosperity look promising, the potential is clouded by fundamental weaknesses regarding the property rights regime that could mar their prospect of fulfilling their own promise. This is an article I wrote after a trip to Brazil to attend a conference, in May 2007. Going beyond land: The Case for Securing Property Rights in Brazil, China and India Land is an emotive issue in most societies. But land is also the most basic of economic assets. Therefore, the way land rights, or property rights, are protected provide a good indication of the economic health of the country. On a recent trip to Brazil, I was surprised to see the intensity of fe...

My IPN press release titled Governments Restrict Access to Healthcare and Prevent Medicine Development was publishedon International Policy Network on March 23rd 2006. London: 50 per cent of people in parts of Africa and Asia have no access to medicines due to harmful government policies, reports the Civil Society Report on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Health. The document produced by 16 civil society organizations from around the world, is being released ahead of a report on a similar theme from the World Health Organization. Examples of harmful government interventions identified in the report are: Taxes and tariffs of up to 55 per cent on imported medicines price people out of treatment. Byzantine and costly registration requirements mean many medicines already approved in the US, EU and Japan are simply not registered in most poor countries because manufacturers cannot justify the investment in registration. Health insurance is hampered by government regulations, so the ...

India's compliance with TRIPS will not hinder the poor's access to essential medicines; rather, it is the government's hold on the healthcare sector that makes equitable healthcare impossible. My article titled Misdiagnosing the diseases of the poor was published in The Indian Express on January 28 2005. The present debate over the Indian patent law, despite the passion, is underscored by the desire to score political points. Consequently, most of the arguments have been disconnected from reality. India has been a proving ground for those who oppose patents on pharmaceutical products. We scrapped all product patents in 1972. As a result, India is now home to over 20,000 pharmaceutical companies producing copies of drugs developed óand patentedó elsewhere. However, access to medicines remains pooró suggesting that patents are not the key determinant of access that their opponents claim. In India, medicine represents between 10 and 15% of total health care costs. This will...

The present debate over the Indian patent law has done a disservice to the poor patients by shifting the focus away from the more sickness that afflicts the health care system in India. Its not patents but the government hold on the health care sector that is preventing the poor from gaining access to medicines. A version of this article titled "Patients, not Patents, need to be at heart of the health care debate" has appeared in The Indian Express , January 28, 2004 The present debate over the Indian patent law, despite the passion, is underscored by the desire to score political points. Consequently, most of the arguments have been disconnected from reality. India has been a proving ground for those who oppose patents on pharmaceutical products. We scrapped all product patents in 1972. As a result, India is now home to over 20,000 pharmaceutical companies producing copies of drugs developed and patented elsewhere. However, access to medicines remains poor suggesting that p...

My article titled "Is Free Trade Fair Trade?" was published in March 2000. Free trade is fair trade, or so one thought until the recent protests in Seattle during the WTO meeting. The Seattle protesters contended that unrestricted trade harms developing countries. In contrast, India's experience provides clear evidence of the high costs of a restrictive trade policy. For almost fifty years, India, the world's largest democracy, lived under the premise that trade is a zero-sum game. Successive governments believed that free trade would only weaken the Indian economy further and open it up for even greater economic exploitation. The result of this economic experiment has been tragic but clear. In 1947, at the time of Independence from British colonial rule, India's share of global trade was estimated to be about 1.8%. Today it is less than half that. Per capita income has stagnated at less than $500, and an estimated 20-30% of the population lives in abject poverty....

My article titled "IPR protects Indian agriculture" was published in the newsletter of the Liberty Institute in May 1999. A lot has been said over the consequences of IPR in agriculture, and in areas where knowledge is said to have been traditionally handed down the generations. However, a proper IPR regime can help protect not only the foreign inventors, but also the domestic players. Following is a summary of the present status of IPR in some of the most prominent instances. TURMERIC In 1993, two American scientists of Indian origin filed a patent for use of turmeric to heal wounds. Initially the specification contained information on the prior knowledge of the various uses of turmeric and it also acknowledged that the pharmaco-kinetics involving the safety toxicity dosage and biological properties of turmeric are well known. It also said the main object of the invention is the use of turmeric powder at the site of injury by topical application and/or oral intake. The othe...

My article titled "IPR promotes knowledge and economic development" was published in the newsletter of the Liberty Institute in May 1999. Over the past couple of years, the debate over Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) has increasingly become quite shrill. However, this seemed to have not enlarged the scope of the debate. The opponents have tried to portray IPR as a sell out to foreign interests, while the supporters of IPR reform keep repeating the necessity of IPR in the era of globalisation. However, the distinct advantages of having a good IPR regime, have rarely been highlighted. IPR was first recognised in England in the 17th Century, just as the industrial revolution was beginning to have an impact. The aim was to protect the interests of the inventor, and thereby encourage the development of newer and better products so that the society benefits as a result. Another critical component of IPR was that once the right was recognised, the new knowledge was open to publi...