Harvey Ken
School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia.
Aust Health Rev. 2004 Nov 8;28(2):218-26. doi: 10.1071/ah040218.
There is tension between the need of the pharmaceutical innovator for intellectual property protection and the need of society for equitable and affordable access to innovative drugs. The recent Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement provides a nice illustration of this interplay between patents, pills and politics. This article provides a brief history of patent law as applied to pharmaceuticals, describes how the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme got caught up in AUSFTA negotiations, analyses the clauses that are likely to impact upon the PBS and describes the political process that reviewed and ultimately amended the AUSFTA.
制药创新者对知识产权保护的需求与社会对公平且可负担得起的创新药物获取途径的需求之间存在矛盾。近期的澳美自由贸易协定很好地说明了专利、药品与政治之间的这种相互作用。本文简要介绍了适用于制药领域的专利法历史，描述了药品福利计划如何卷入澳美自由贸易协定谈判，分析了可能对药品福利计划产生影响的条款，并阐述了审查并最终修订澳美自由贸易协定的政治过程。
