On December 1st, Gabriel Leonardos, the president-elect of the ABPI, participated in the webinar promoted by UNIRIO (the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro) on the debate on patents in the pharmaceutical industry and access to healthcare. Professor Ricardo Sichel moderated the event, which had the participation of health physician Gonzalo Vecina Neto as a guest speaker.
Founder of ANVISA, Vecina Neto criticized Brazil’s lack of a social policy for access to health and defended the provision of compulsory licensing to produce medicines in the event of public health crises. But he admitted that Brazil lacks industrial capacity. “The problem with compulsory licensing is how to manufacture the product. What is deposited with a patent agency does not allow the manufacturing of a copy of the product, only reverse engineering”.
As a debater at the event, Leonardos also defended the negotiation with the industry to facilitate the access of medicines to the population. He mentioned the voluntary license, and, in critical cases, the compulsory license provided for by Law. “It will not be through decrees or ordinances that Brazil will solve the problem of access to health, but with an industrial policy”, he stated. “The compulsory license can even be a bargaining tool that the State could use when necessary”.
