Assignment 10A: Ellen 'T Hoen on Medical Patents Pool

The Medical Patents Pool is a great idea on paper. It is a voluntary mechanism that lets participating pharmaceutical companies such as Gilead to license its medical patents to allow generic manufacturers to produce and sell the medicine. While Gilead does get a royalty for each sale, the question of whether the costs incurred to research and develop the patent will be covered by these royalties and Gilead's sales.

Even if Gilead does manage to break even, it still must make a certain level of profit in order to satisfy its stakeholders. If it doesn't project that licensing will result in this, then it has no incentive to participate. But it did, which is good news for both parties.

However, in the long run, we must seriously consider Hoen's words. Hoen, at the end of her talk, basically says that pharmaceutical companies must do it now or governments will force them to do it later. This is an ultimatum, not to be taken lightly. With the enormous multitude of countries and forms of government, bio-pharmaceutical companies need only to move their operations to another geographic location to avoid government pursuers.