Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of the patenting of new drugs on their price and availability to treat neglected tropical diseases overseas.

Most drugs required to treat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are donated free of charge by pharmaceutical companies. However, in some cases the drugs need to be purchased. In these cases we work to secure good value for money in our procurement and also encourage flexible approaches to increase availability, such as licensing and technology transfer partnerships with low-cost, high-quality generic manufacturers.

DFID also funds research into new NTD treatments through Product Development Partnerships (PDPs). PDPs use patents flexibly to ensure products are available at lowest possible cost. This includes negotiating royalty-free access to patented products and developing products as ‘open source’ so that anyone can use them, with requirements for distribution at the lowest possible cost. PDPs can also patent new products at an early stage and then use the patent to attract partners to help develop the products and make them available at the lowest possible cost.