International medicines governance 1940s to 1970s: lessons for public health

Abstract

Public health advocates aim to maximise affordable access to good quality essential medicines. This goal often conflicts with the profit-seeking ambitions of the pharmaceutical industry. Since the World Trade Organisation’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement, the extension and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights has become the dominant discourse in global medicines governance. Public health advocates operating within this framework face significant obstacles and challenges. This paper presents an historical perspective to the contemporary debate over medicines and patents by examining the evolution of international medicines governance between the 1940s and 1970s. This research indicates that debates around IP and medicines were more advanced in terms of equity and access in the 1960s and 1970s than they are today. While acknowledging the existence of obstacles and challenges for advocates, the paper argues that alternative frameworks can and should be reasserted in global debates about medicines governance.

Keywords:

• Public health
• TRIPS
• access to medicines
• medicines policy

Acknowledgements

I thank Hans Löfgren and Nick Henry for their helpful advice on earlier drafts of this paper as well as the anonymous reviewers whose feedback was appreciated.

Disclosure statement

The author has no financial interest or benefit resulting from this research. The author is a member of the People’s Health Movement and the Public Health Association of Australia. She has been involved in the Public Health Association of Australia’s advocacy on matters relating to trade agreements

Notes

1. The World Health Assembly is the governing body of the WHO that comprises member states of the UN and meets annually in Geneva, Switzerland.

2. The paper uses the term ‘developing countries’ in the period 1950s–1970s because this was the term used by UN bodies at the time.

3. The Andean Community is a trade bloc founded in 1969 by Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

4. UNCTAD and UNIDO were established in the mid-1960s to promote and accelerate the industrialisation of developing countries.