The Medicines Patent Pool Signs Collaborative Agreements with National Industrial Property Institutes of Argentina and Brazil
12 December 2017
Geneva, 12 December 2017 — The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has signed collaborative agreements with additional patent offices, Argentina’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) to augment data on MedsPaL, its signature resource for patent and licensing information in developing countries. Argentina’s and Brazil’s national patent offices are contributing crucial data on the intellectual property status of medicines on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines (WHO EML) to guide public health actors in making procurement and supply decisions.
To date, the MPP has signed eight agreements with national and regional offices, including with the European Patent Office, which provides automatic data feeds from the European Patent Office’s public database Espacenet. Memoranda of Understanding with the patent offices of Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador and South Africa help keep MedsPaL information current and relevant for users.
Today, at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on the Law of Patents, the MPP announced the expansion of MedsPaL to other medicines on the EML. Intellectual property information on seven cancer drugs have been added to the database, which originally focused on HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis medicines.
The MPP’s HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis activities are fully funded by Unitaid.
About the Medicines Patent Pool
The Medicines Patent Pool is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis treatments in low- and middle-income countries. Through its innovative business model, the MPP partners with industry, civil society, international organisations, patient groups and other stakeholders to prioritise, forecast and license needed medicines and pool intellectual property to encourage generic manufacture and the development of new formulations. To date, the MPP has signed agreements with nine patent holders for thirteen HIV antiretrovirals, one HIV technology platform, two hepatitis C direct-acting antivirals and a tuberculosis treatment. The MPP was founded and is funded by Unitaid.
