Intellectual Property Rights: Affordable Drugs

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to use the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to guarantee access to affordable drugs in (1) the United Kingdom, and (2) developing countries.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

The Government have long supported affordable and equitable access to medicines, including in developing countries. We believe that a robust and fair intellectual property system is essential for an innovation framework. It allows economies to grow while enabling society to benefit from knowledge and ideas. The Government are therefore working within the TRIPS framework to collaborate with public and private partners, in the UK and internationally, to promote affordable access to medicines for all.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in the context of hundreds of millions of Covid vaccines being held in the United Kingdom and the significant sums of public money invested in developing new drugs and treatments, notwithstanding the need to generate funds to enable future research and development, when companies such as Gilead repurpose drugs such as remdesivir and charge $2,340 for a Covid treatment that Liverpool University estimates can be made for $9, should the Government not invoke their powers to use Crown licences to prevent patent monopolies impeding access to medicine, to ensure equitable access, to prevent exploitative profiteering, and to recognise that affordable drugs and their fair distribution are a public good that this country should be at the forefront in providing?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I think we all agree that the world urgently needs access for all to safe, effective, quality and affordable vaccines, diagnostic medicines and other health technologies to enable an effective response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Intellectual property rights provide incentives to create and commercialise new inventions such as life-changing vaccines. In short, they keep innovators innovating, creators creating and investors investing.