The Medicines Patent Pool is improving access to essential medication where it's most needed

The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), a not-for-profit organization established in 2010 with UN backing, focuses on enhancing access to essential medicines in lower and middle-income countries (LMICs). It achieves this by negotiating voluntary licenses with patent holders, typically pharmaceutical companies, before granting sublicenses to manufacturers in targeted LMICs where the originator companies usually lack a presence.

This approach results in low or no royalty payments to patent holders, coupled with competitive pricing from multiple sublicensees in the targeted markets, thereby reducing medicine costs. In the 2020-2025 period, MPP licensed 44 products from 22 originator companies, supplying 62.14 billion doses of treatment. For instance, 286 million packs of the widely-used HIV medication, 30 TLD tablets, were distributed across 108 countries, including South Africa, India, and Nigeria.

Initially targeting small-molecule medicines, MPP now aims to expand its efforts to biotherapeutics and mRNA vaccine manufacturing in LMICs. Focusing on cancer, which is predicted to cause three-quarters of deaths in developing regions by 2030, MPP supports generic versions of patented cancer medicines in countries like El Salvador, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

The MPP also seeks to strengthen pandemic preparedness by developing mRNA vaccine capabilities in LMICs, though the patent landscape for biotherapeutics is more complex due to the larger number of patent holders and intricate production processes. In response, MPP is transitioning from a clearinghouse to a genuine patent pool, bundling sublicenses into a single package that covers related and complementary technologies needed for complex product manufacturing.

An economic analysis of the MPP's approach, published in Nature Biotechnology, demonstrates significant efficiency gains from reduced royalty rates and increased benefits for end buyers (governments, hospitals, and patients) compared to separate licensing arrangements.