July 03, 2006

Yes, But, Yes!

Sir, Christopher Earl’s and Harvey Bale’s “A market remedy that can bring vaccines to the poor”, July 3, is very hope-lifting as they describe how Advance Market Commitment funds could give incentives for the research of medicines mostly needed by the very poor. That is of course until we get to the “once the fund was exhausted, the company or companies supplying the vaccine would have to lower its price to ensure market’s sustainability, but a reasonable return on investment would already have been achieved”, and which crudely brings us back to reality check one. Nowadays when we even hear about how the patented rights of fully amortized medicines are purchased in order to raise the prices to consumers, we need to better understand whether the concept of a “reasonable return” can indeed be mentioned in the context of creating the right incentives for research. That said, of course this is a good idea to be explored, and why not to the extent of forcing perhaps a small percentage of all the medicine costs in the developed countries to feed into these funds. The way the world is getting more and more contagious who knows if medicine developed through these systems for the poor will also benefit the rich tomorrow.