(As Prepared)

Item 8.4 Evaluation and review of the Global Strategy and Plan of Action (GSPOA) on public health, innovation and intellectual property (IP)

The Global Strategy and Plan of Action (GSPOA) on public health, innovation and intellectual property is a key initiative to promote new thinking on innovation and access to medicines and encourage needs-driven research targeting diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries. The Medicines Patent Pool is one concrete example of successful implementation of the GSPOA where it was originally proposed as a mechanism to promote transfer and access to health-related technologies (Element 4.3).  We thank Member States for having encouraged the global health community to test this new approach and UNITAID for taking the lead in establishing the MPP as the first public health patent pool, initially focusing on HIV, and now expanded to hepatitis C and tuberculosis (TB). We are now pleased to inform Member States that we are embarking on an analysis of the feasibility of expanding the mechanism further to patented essential medicines.

The MPP looks forward to collaborating with Member States to continue developing its work, including possible interaction with other new incentive mechanisms to promote access and innovation in public health.

One area needing further policy experimentation is TB, the leading cause of infectious disease mortality with a significant gap in research and development investments. New incentive mechanisms in the form of push and pull funding, combined with IP and clinical data pooling, hold significant promise to promote the development of new TB regimens. This week, the MPP announced its first TB licence on pipeline medicine sutezolid to accelerate its development and facilitate affordable access. We hope to work closely with Member States, communities, pharmaceutical industry, drug developers and civil society to address this critical public health challenge.

The MPP looks forward to the EB’s evaluation of the GSPOA and to reviewing additional recommendations for addressing innovation and access gaps in public health, particularly in areas such as TB and antimicrobial resistence.