Medicines Patent Pool announces MedsPaL: its new Medicines Patents & Licences Database
Medicines Patent Pool's signature database upgraded to include patent and licensing data for HIV, hepatitis C and TB medicines.
Geneva, 5 October 2016 – The Medicines Patent Pool today announced the launch of MedsPaL, its Medicines Patents & Licences Database, a new resource for information on the intellectual property status of priority medicines in developing countries. Introduced at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) General Assemblies, MedsPaL replaces MPP’s signature HIV patent status database and includes patent and licensing data on HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis treatments covering 4,000 national patent applications in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
“Over the years, the MPP’s HIV patent status database has played an important role in improving our understanding of the patent landscape of HIV medicines in low- and middle-income countries,” said Greg Perry, Executive Director of the MPP. “Its successor marks the first time all of the pertinent patent and licensing data on HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis medicines will be available in one location and is expected to benefit a range of public health stakeholders.”
MedsPaL has searchable information on 35 patented medicines and more than 100 formulations for the treatment of HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis included in World Health Organization guidelines or in its Essential Medicines List. The database also includes data on more than 30 licences to enable competitive manufacturing or supply of these medicines in LMICs. Licences include those negotiated by the MPP as well as other licensing agreements for which public information is available to guide international organisations, generic developers and national treatment programmes globally.
“We support full transparency of the intellectual property status of HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis medicines in the regions in which we work and consider it is essential for the success of the global response to disease. Without the transparency that the MedsPaL initiative supports our credibility would suffer,” said Lelio Marmora, Executive Director of UNITAID, MPP’s funder. “We therefore strongly back this initiative.”
“Access to comprehensive, updated patent information is essential for supplying customers worldwide and particularly those in middle-income countries. IDA Foundation has long relied on the Medicines Patent Pool for data related to HIV drugs,” said Edwin de Voogd, Chief Executive Officer of the IDA Foundation, a leading not-for-profit supplier of essential, quality-assured medicines and medical supplies to LMICs. “We welcome the launch of MedsPaL and the inclusion of Hepatitis C and tuberculosis medicines in this new database.”
The Medicines Patent Pool has collected MedsPaL patent data from national and regional patent offices and public disclosures from the patent holders themselves, for example in the context of MPP licences. Information is regularly updated through automatic data feeds from the European Patent Office’s public database Espacenet, online searches, expert analysis and collaboration with national patent offices. To support the MedsPaL initiative the MPP is signing collaborative agreements with the European Patent Office (EPO) and Chile’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INAPI) this week, and will be pursuing further arrangements with other patent offices.
The MedsPaL database provides information on the legal status of individual patents and patent applications, expected expiry dates, and other key information on those patents. It also provides links to additional patent data available in Espacenet, which includes copies of the actual patents whenever available.
The Medicines Patents & Licences Database (www.medspal.org)
About the Medicines Patent Pool
The Medicines Patent Pool is a United Nations-backed public health organisation working to increase access to HIV, viral hepatitis C and tuberculosis treatments in low- and middle-income countries. Through its innovative business model, the MPP partners with industry, civil society, international organisations, patient groups and other stakeholders to prioritise, forecast and license needed medicines and pool intellectual property to encourage generic manufacture and the development of new formulations. To date, the MPP has signed agreements with seven patent holders for twelve HIV antiretrovirals, one HIV technology platform and one hepatitis C direct-acting antiviral. The MPP was founded and is fully funded by UNITAID.
Source: Medicines Patent Pool
