New approach to intellectual-property rights needed in medical field, Vatican delegate tells UN

February 19, 2015

The Vatican’s representative at UN offices in Geneva has argued that a “creative and innovative approach” to intellectual-property rights is needed in order to ensure that medicines and medical equipment are more widely available.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said that the current structure of intellectual-property law does not adequately serve the purpose of providing medicine and equipment to all those in need. He pointed to two major problems.

First, the archbishop said, “some pharmaceutical companies assert a claim to unrealistic profit and cost recovery margins” for their products. As a result, the prices of medicines are set at levels too high to be within the range of individual consumers or even governments of impoverished nations.

Second, Archbishop Tomasi observed, there are not adequate incentives for corporations to do research and development on diseases that would yield a low return on investment. Such diseases, he noted, are often those that occur most frequently in poor countries; he mentioned tuberculosis, malaris, and the Ebola virus.

Archbishop Tomasi called for a new approach to the concept of intellectual property, which would provide researchers and developers with a healthy return on their work while serving the needs of the common good.

 

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Further information:

• Holy See: Creative approach to intellectual property necessary for health care (Vatican Radio)