Boosting Pharma Innovation after TRIPS: lessons to be learned

Boosting Pharmaceutical Innovation In The Post-TRIPS Era: Real-Life Lessons for the Developing World, by Burcu Kilic (Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Program), is a lovely little book which owes its origins to the author's PhD thesis, supervised by Katfriend Duncan Matthews (Queen Mary).

According to Edward Elgar Publishing:

Boosting Pharmaceutical Innovation In The Post-TRIPS Era investigates the concept of innovation and illustrates the crucial role that patent strategies play within processes of pharmaceutical innovation. Drawing on extensive country and company case studies, it identifies the key issues relevant to the revival of local pharmaceutical industries.

Based on an understanding of the post-TRIPS environment and case studies of national innovation strategies, the book specifically addresses an important question – to what extent can lessons from national experiences be transferred to current policy developments for innovation in the pharmaceutical industry in a developing country context? The book sets out a number of recommendations on how this can be achieved. It suggests that it can be done in relation to the key development objectives of promoting the technological and scientific advancement of the country, enhancing local pharmaceutical innovation capacities, adapting patent law to own local realities, providing wide access to medicines and knowledge, safeguarding public health interests, and fostering innovation.

Practitioners and policy planners within the pharmaceutical industry will deem this book invaluable as it addresses a number of practical implications for the promotion of the pharmaceutical industry. It will also be of enormous interest to students, researchers and academics specialising in intellectual property law and policy, science and technology, and the management of technology and innovation.

The heart of the book is a 49-page description and subsequent analysis and comparison of the experience of four countries -- the United States, Japan, South Korea and Israel -- followed by a 36-page in-depth study of the experiences of leading Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva. The author then projects lessons learned from these markets, together with the provisions of TRIPs (in particular those relating to the compulsory licensing of patents) into the conditions in which developing countries find themselves when seeking to boost the functionality of their own pharma sectors. The author's observation (in the context of Israel) that a consultative process between industry and IPR policymakers is a good model on which developing countries should proceed is, in this reviewer's opinion, a piece of advice that applies equally to developed countries.  In the context of the EU, he has wondered if the only thing the Commission and its policymakers want to hear from the pharma sector is the sound of it squealing with pain.

Bibliographic data: xii + 271 pages. Hardback 978 1 78254 412 8 ebook ISBN 978 1 78254 413 5. Hardback $130 (online from the publishers $117). Rupture factor: low,  Book's web page here.