An interesting article by Dr. Kristina Lybecker published in IP WatchDog addressing the question of what truly influences a population's access to medicines.

As the TPP negotiations continue this week, the debate over intellectual property rights and access to medicines continues as well. In the quest to eliminate barriers to access it is critical to correctly identify what factors genuinely inhibit access. In the context of this TPP Agreement, strong intellectual property rights enhance trade and growth, which enhances access to medicines. If greater access is to be achieved, safeguarding the protections surrounding innovation is essential, for it encourages investment, technology transfer, and economic prosperity.

The TPP offers an opportunity for governments to encourage patient access to medicines by ensuring that their regulatory and legal frameworks value innovation and the underlying intellectual property to develop new and improved medicines for patients.

Read the fact sheet on Innovation and the TPP.

Guest blog by Durhane Wong-Rieger, PhD -- Chair of the International Alliance of Patients' Organizations.

For patients around the world maintaining an economic and social environment in which innovation can thrive while, at the same time, enhancing affordable access to better preventive and curative care are key issues. Patients have an important role to play in guiding and supporting innovation with special reference to intellectual property development IP and world health improvement.

Last year, Matrix Insights published a report by Dr. Kanavos (LSE Health), Professor David Taylor (The School of Pharmacy, University of London) and others on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and it's potential impact on enhancing trade and continuing health and development.

The report concluded that "Providing the pharmaceutical industry the IP protection it requires to invest in improved health outcomes must sit alongside sustainable programs to address sub-standard medicines, assured means to exceptional health challenges, and a structured approach to availability of low-cost mature off-patent treatments. The TPP provides an excellent opportunity to lead in the establishment of the next generation of FTAs, which seek to meet each of these goals and, in doing so, fully aligning global free trade with global responsibility."

In the lead-up to the 16th round of negotiations, I thought these issues were worth being raised again.

"Every time the U.S. negotiates a new trade deal, it seems that there is an enormous amount of misinformation generated by all sides of the debate in an attempt to frame the issue in the narrowest terms, portraying it as either a panacea or the end of the world.

The fact of the matter is that trade is a complex and nuanced issue that can’t readily be broken down into sound bites. No side gets everything it puts on the table, and tradeoffs must be made depending on priorities: give a little in one area to get back something of value in another. With the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement currently being negotiated between the United States and about a dozen Asia-Pacific nations, it’s no different. The countries currently in TPP negotiations comprise the 4th-largest export market for U.S. firms, and the broader Asia Pacific region accounts for more than 40 percent of global trade, so it’s critical that we get the best deal possible."

By Phillip Stevens, Executive Director of the Emerging Markets Health Network

In order to bring some evidence to this debate about free trade and health, Emerging Markets Health Network undertook an econometric study analysing the relationship between trade openness and health indicators such as infant mortality rates and life expectancy. The implications of our study are clear: policymakers – particularly those from low-income countries – should continue to pursue trade liberalisation in order to improve the welfare of their citizens.

While the TPP negotiations are far from over, recent news reports provide indications that member nations are looking forward to concluding the deal in 2013.

Patients will benefit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as will the member countries. Protecting intellectual property rights is a critical component and vital to the future treatments that are so desperately needed.

The biopharmaceutical sector invests in research that improves health and lengthens lives. Researchers in the biopharma industry are working on treatments for diseases than range from AIDS to Tuberculosis to West Nile Virus. These medicines improve the quality of our lives and also lower our healthcare bills. Research shows that each dollar increase in pharmaceutical spending yields as reduction in hospital expenses of $3.65.

Technology is, to a remarkable degree, a local not global asset. Research has established that innovation in high tech industries is enhanced by geographic concentration, which facilitates R&D spillovers. Proximity facilitates collaboration, technological spillovers and enhances innovative productivity. All of these benefits are facilitated by an environment of secure intellectual property rights and safeguards for innovation.