Geneva, 16 February 2009 UNITAID welcomes GlaxoSmithKlines (GSKs) announcement last week that it will tackle neglected diseases in least developed countries and place its patents for the necessary medicines into a pool.

This is a positive signal from an originator company, said Dr Jorge Bermudez, Executive Secretary of UNITAID, that industry intendsto do more for diseases in poor countries.

The UNITAID Executive Board gave the go-ahead in July 2008 for the establishment of a UNITAID patent pool to expand access to medicines indeveloping countries. The UNITAID pool will start with HIV therapies,which are not included in the GSK announced list of treatments, and will target low- and middle-income countries.
Patent pools are increasingly seen as a useful tool in tackling barriers to access indeveloping countries, said Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy, Chair of UNITAID's Executive Board. Sharing knowledge and technologies and putting them at the service of global health is key to truly expanding treatments for all populations.
About six million people who need HIV therapy today are not receiving it due largely to price barriers and the lack of more appropriate treatments for patients in poor countries. For instance, more fixed-dose combinations (several pills in one) are needed to promote patient adherence as well as more affordable second-line treatments for people who have developed resistance to conventional therapies and more child-specific formulations.
The UNITAID patent pool will work with global health authorities to come up with a list of priority medicines. Patent holders will be able to place their patents into the pool voluntarily. The idea is for other companies, including generic manufacturers, to take out licenses on those medicines and produce them in combined or improved form and, ultimately, stimulate competition to bring prices down.
We also need to make sure that newer, safer and more effective medicines are available to the poor as soon as possible, said Ellen t Hoen, UNITAID Senior Advisor on Intellectual Property. Those newer medicines can sometimes be patent protected for as long as 20 years. People already diagnosed with HIV cannot wait that long.
The UNITAID patent pool aims to become operational towards the end of 2009.

For more information, contact:

Ellen 't Hoen,
UNITAID Senior Advisor, Intellectual Property,
tel. +33 622 37 58 71
or

Daniela Bagozzi,
UNITAID Media and Communication,
tel. +41 22 791 45 44,
mob. +41 (0)79475 54 90