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...placing its patents in the GlaxoSmithKline pool, MIT agrees to allow other researchers to use its intellectual property to help fight neglected tropical diseases. But use is limited: According to GlaxoSmithKline, the intellectual property must relate directly to NTDs, and products that are developed from the pool will “go solely to the least developed countries.” This small group of 50 least developed countries will exclude low- and middle-income nations like India, China, and Brazil, where a majority of the world’s poor live and most of the developing world?...
While patent pooling may be a step toward opening up access to knowledge for researchers who wish to help people in developing countries, students at MIT have asked, “Is MIT doing enough?” Neglected tropical diseases are not the only diseases that kill people in developing countries: Heart disease, HIV/AIDS, and stroke are among the leading causes of death among people in poor countries. These diseases are not “neglected,” because they affect the rich and poor alike, and new technologies are being developed to treat them...
Universities like MIT are starting to acknowledge that patenting can serve as a double-edged sword. It can be used to develop university technology into useful products by attracting investors, but it can also interfere with access to knowledge by blocking researchers and patients from accessing vital ideas created at universities. What can academic institutions do to ensure that all important treatments coming from our labs—not just NTD treatments—reach people in developing countries...
...MIT was invited to sign on to the statement but declined to do so, leading students to question whether the institution has lived up to its mission to “bring [its] knowledge to bear on the world’s greatest challenges.” In this context, MIT’s patent-pooling announcement appears to be an unsuccessful attempt to catch up with Harvard and other Boston-area academic-research centers in the race to deliver essential medicines to patients in developing countries...
...announcement is an important step in acknowledging that creative strategies must be used to stop university patents from serving as a barrier to further innovation and access to essential medicines. Yet contributing patents to the GlaxoSmithKline patent pool is the least a university can do. Let us hope that MIT, along with other universities who have yet to join in a more broad-based commitment to global access, will soon get the message that they can do much more...