C/L/75. Intellectual property and antiretroviral drugs

This work is dedicated to comprehensive analysis of the interconnection between protection of intellectual property and lack of antiretroviral drugs in developing countries. It is well known that patents protect research and development activities conducted by the company and allow it to invest more money into further research. On the other hand, high prices on drugs that result from protected intellectual property rights are unaffordable by the majority of developing countries. The problem is especially acute when it comes to such a pandemic as AIDS. All these problems are considered in the paper. The author elaborates on the traditional view on intellectual property and pros and cons of this approach if applied to the AIDS pandemic. The TRIPS agreement is also taken into account. This work would be interesting to those researchers who try to look at the intersection of economics, law and medicine from the holistic perspective.