Excerpt from the letter to WHO accompanying the draft treaty: 'A trade framework that only relies upon high prices to bolster medical R&D investments anticipates and accepts the rationing of new medical innovations, does nothing to address the global need for public sector R&D investments, is ineffective at driving investments into important priority research projects, and when taken to extremes, is subject to a number of well-known anticompetitive practices and abuses. Policy makers need a new framework that has the flexibility to promote both innovation and access, and which is consistent with efforts to protect consumers and control costs. To this end, a number of experts and stakeholders have proposed a new global treaty to support medical R&D....The current draft R&D treaty seeks to stimulate discussion, noting of course that the development of a treaty is a democratic process involving negotiations between member states with input from civil society. The draft treaty text is a work in progress, representing a collaborative effort with contributions from many persons over the past two years....The draft treaty proposes adoption of a best practices model for the support of open access biomedical research, and obligations that research supported by public funds enter open access archives.'
13.1 Obligations to provide incentives for open access research
The CMI [Council on Medical Innovation] will appoint a committee on open access research (COAR). The COAR will adopt best a practices model for the support of open access research. Within [5] years, every member will adopt procedures concerning obligations for research supported by the public sector to be made available to the public through open access archives or repositories.
(Disclosure: I participated in drafting the OA-related parts of the draft treaty and signed the letter to the WHO.) For more details, see the CPTech page on the treaty.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/25/2005 01:59:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
