Stopping Drug Patents Has Stopped Pandemics Before
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/07/stopping-drug-patents-pandemics-coronavirus-hiv-aids
In 2002, former U.S. President Bill Clinton intervened, using his bully pulpit in consultation with a team of academic experts convened by his philanthropic foundation to contrive a tech-transfer scheme that had Western pharmaceutical companies provide their patented drug formulas to Indian generic manufacturing companies, ultimately bringing down annual treatment costs from nearly $10,000 to less than $100.
Far from bringing chaos to the pharmaceutical industry and stifling innovation, the Clinton Foundation’s maneuver around the strict enforcement of intellectual property laws ushered in a dramatic era of HIV drug invention that improved the antiviral power of treatment, lowered drug side effects, developed new drug forms that are now taken to prevent infection, increased options for pediatric care, and greatly improved the methods for which HIV positive individuals could take their life-sparing treatments. Despite the loss of guaranteed patent protection and pressure to transfer technology to, primarily, Indian pharmaceutical companies, wealthy nations’ drug companies have profited and continue to innovate on the HIV/AIDS front.