In the constitutional perspective of the best protection of the right to health. expropriations of use compulsory helicopters, they are not shortcuts, strategic alliances with companies are needed to increase license production
Perhaps this is taken for granted, but the first food for thought that the COVID crisis offers us on the debated issue of! The relationship between the right to health and patents comes from the fact that there are vaccines, which arose essentially from research conducted by the industry and which arrived much earlier (and much more numerous) than initially expected. This is a result that was by no means taken for granted.
These vaccines are evidently developed for different purposes, but proved equally useful for this challenge. Exactly as was the case for the moon landing, a goal reached by the Americans and not by the Russians, despite the enormous initial delay of the first in the space race, because the US civil industry had obtained, also for other purposes, essentially market, tools proved indispensable also for astronautics, such as the miniaturization of electronics. In this case as in that, the competitive environment created by the possibility of exclusively exploiting, through patents, the results of one’s own applied research and therefore making a profit, has proved to be a decisive factor for promoting movement and therefore for already disposing h1 advance of important steps to face emergencies.
There or eraemerso clearly already in when, in 1978 , our very Corte C or s you -institutional cance l or l the diviet or d i brevettazion and of the drugs because contrary to Articles 3 and 9 of the Constitution, which state rispettivan1ente ii fundamental principle of equality, in according to which not only all citizens are ugualidavanti the law, but this must govern incorrespondingly, equivalent situations, without discriminating, such as the one hitherto envisaged against drugs; and the obligation for the Republic to promote scientific and technical research. A large space of the Council’s motivation was dedicated to the right to health and to the fact that patenting itself, and not its prohibition, was the most suitable method for achieving its satisfaction.
It sidicache best all funding to ricercapubblica could suppl.ire aquellaprivata :even in countries that, unlike de! our, devote a relevant part of! budget of increasing the economic support for public research, making it coordinated by a single body operating with meritocratic criteria and reducing bureaucratic obstacles to experimentation at least to the level of our European partners), the involvement of private industry is an indispensable result, also because that resided in the production know-how, essential for producing and packaging truly safe vaccines. Precisely in the constitutional perspective of the best protection of the! right to health, then, the abolition of patents, expropriations of use and compulsory licenses are not shortcuts: they are dead ends Not the last resort, but quicksand.
The best practices to be imitated are those of those who have worked together and not against the rights holders to make an effective increase in production possible ,to which the latter cannot be opposed, because precisely in a market logic, licensing (to which Moderna, for example, has already declared itself available) is the ideal solution when demand is higher than supply, as obviously could not fail happen in the face of w1a pandemic. And if this has not been done, whoever made a mistake must take responsibility for it, not dump it on the de world! big pharma as a convenient scapegoat to hide the inefficiency and total lack of forecasting capacity that unfortunately characterized the “Italian way” to contain Covid-19. Above all, however, it is necessary to have at least now the Vision de! A future that has been lacking so far, and not only on the war on the pandemic: a mutant virus such as Covid-19 in fact risks lasting a long time and forcing us to vaccinate more than once in the coming years.
It must therefore work to steadily increase the production capacity of vaccines worldwide(also because leaving Africa alone or certain areas of Asia and Central and South America means setting off time bombs: and for this reason the Covax programme should be encouraged, in which Italy obviously also participates, which also aims to finance the vaccination even in poorer countries, but always resorting to market tools, not expropriation), collaborating with innovators and encouraging them through the remuneration that exclusives allow them to obtain for their successes, as it is necessary to do in all sectors, starting with those in which the “new needs” of! our time, from promoting the quality of life to increasing environmental sustainability. The market, in fact, will stimulate more and more subjects to do research in these fields, in the perspective of being able to earn,
The same competition can and should indeed also operate between the institutions , so also here to develop best practices to be disseminated and follow: so roll the choice of Germany (but also the de! Veneto) to support European supplies further agreements – collateral bridges, which in any case would have the effect of increasing the overall availability of vaccines, which is in everyone’s interest, not only those who will be vaccinated, and whose cost will be amply offset by the positive effects on the economy, the other great victim of the pandemic and more. still some wrong ways of dealing with it.
Ben is, ie, the true federalism, between the States and in the States , which could also lead to the desired place by all the European Union, transforming it into a veroStato nation, that is able to deal on equal terms with other Great Four of the 21st Century, the United States, China, Russia and India, and who has few central competences in matters of vital common interest (foreign policy, security and defense, internal competition, international instead returned to the States and Regions in matters in which differences are an asset and not an obstacle.
Understand that in this battle the true enemies of all are the
bureaucracy, inefficiency, political mediation, and not patents, it means then begin to lay the foundation for a happy new growth, which has always been the intellectual property eii hub, helping to allocate in efficiently scarce resources and thus truly realize the universal destination of goods, which will be in the interest of the peoples of the whole world only if these goods can be produced in ever greater quantities and with ever greater quality.
Contributed by:
Cesare Galli
IP Law Galli
