Access to Medicine in the Global Economy

Access to Medicine in the Global Economy PDF Author: Cynthia Ho
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195390121
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
The issue of how patents impact medicine has increased in significance within the last decade. The book provides an explanation of the current international infrastructure and explains how competing patent perspectives play a thus far unacknowledged role in promoting distortion and confusion.

Access to Medicine in the Global Economy

Access to Medicine in the Global Economy PDF Author: Cynthia Ho
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195390121
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Get Book Here

Book Description
The issue of how patents impact medicine has increased in significance within the last decade. The book provides an explanation of the current international infrastructure and explains how competing patent perspectives play a thus far unacknowledged role in promoting distortion and confusion.

Access to Medicine in the Global Economy

Access to Medicine in the Global Economy PDF Author: Cynthia Ho
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199750181
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Access to medicine is a topic of widespread interest. However, some issues that impact such access are presently inadequately understood. In particular, international laws require most nations to provide patents on drugs, resulting in premium prices that limit access. In Access to Medicine in the Global Economy, Professor Cynthia Ho explains such laws and their impact for a diverse group of readers, from scholars and policy makers to students in a variety of disciplines. This book explains and interprets important international agreements, beginning with the landmark Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), but also including more recent free trade agreements and the pending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Professor Ho addresses controversial topics, such as when a nation can provide a compulsory license, as well as whether a nation may suspend in-transit generic goods. The book also discusses how patent-like rights (such as "data exclusivity") prevent lower-cost generic medicines from entering into the marketplace and provides strategies for minimizing the harm of such rights. Clear explanations and diagrams, frequently asked questions, and case studies make these topics accessible to any reader. The case studies also provide a theory of patent perspectives that helps explain why access to medicine, though a universal goal, remains elusive in practice. The book aims to provide an important first step toward eventual workable solutions by promoting a better understanding of existing and future laws that impact access to medicine.

Making Medicines Affordable

Making Medicines Affordable PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309468086
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.

Crossing the Global Quality Chasm

Crossing the Global Quality Chasm PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309477891
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.

Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation - Intersections between Public Health, Intellectual Property and Trade

Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation - Intersections between Public Health, Intellectual Property and Trade PDF Author: World Intellectual Property Organization
Publisher: WIPO
ISBN: 9280523082
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This study has emerged from an ongoing program of trilateral cooperation between WHO, WTO and WIPO. It responds to an increasing demand, particularly in developing countries, for strengthened capacity for informed policy-making in areas of intersection between health, trade and IP, focusing on access to and innovation of medicines and other medical technologies.

Learning from SARS

Learning from SARS PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309182158
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in late 2002 and 2003 challenged the global public health community to confront a novel epidemic that spread rapidly from its origins in southern China until it had reached more than 25 other countries within a matter of months. In addition to the number of patients infected with the SARS virus, the disease had profound economic and political repercussions in many of the affected regions. Recent reports of isolated new SARS cases and a fear that the disease could reemerge and spread have put public health officials on high alert for any indications of possible new outbreaks. This report examines the response to SARS by public health systems in individual countries, the biology of the SARS coronavirus and related coronaviruses in animals, the economic and political fallout of the SARS epidemic, quarantine law and other public health measures that apply to combating infectious diseases, and the role of international organizations and scientific cooperation in halting the spread of SARS. The report provides an illuminating survey of findings from the epidemic, along with an assessment of what might be needed in order to contain any future outbreaks of SARS or other emerging infections.

Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries

Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries PDF Author: Dean T. Jamison
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821361805
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1449

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Book Description
Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.

Communities in Action

Communities in Action PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Evidence-Based Medicine and the Changing Nature of Health Care

Evidence-Based Medicine and the Changing Nature of Health Care PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309113695
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Drawing on the work of the Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, the 2007 IOM Annual Meeting assessed some of the rapidly occurring changes in health care related to new diagnostic and treatment tools, emerging genetic insights, the developments in information technology, and healthcare costs, and discussed the need for a stronger focus on evidence to ensure that the promise of scientific discovery and technological innovation is efficiently captured to provide the right care for the right patient at the right time. As new discoveries continue to expand the universe of medical interventions, treatments, and methods of care, the need for a more systematic approach to evidence development and application becomes increasingly critical. Without better information about the effectiveness of different treatment options, the resulting uncertainty can lead to the delivery of services that may be unnecessary, unproven, or even harmful. Improving the evidence-base for medicine holds great potential to increase the quality and efficiency of medical care. The Annual Meeting, held on October 8, 2007, brought together many of the nation's leading authorities on various aspects of the issues - both challenges and opportunities - to present their perspectives and engage in discussion with the IOM membership.

The Changing Economics of Medical Technology

The Changing Economics of Medical Technology PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030904491X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Americans praise medical technology for saving lives and improving health. Yet, new technology is often cited as a key factor in skyrocketing medical costs. This volume, second in the Medical Innovation at the Crossroads series, examines how economic incentives for innovation are changing and what that means for the future of health care. Up-to-date with a wide variety of examples and case studies, this book explores how payment, patent, and regulatory policiesâ€"as well as the involvement of numerous government agenciesâ€"affect the introduction and use of new pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and surgical procedures. The volume also includes detailed comparisons of policies and patterns of technological innovation in Western Europe and Japan. This fact-filled and practical book will be of interest to economists, policymakers, health administrators, health care practitioners, and the concerned public.