Pharmaceutical access and innovation: Challenges and issues

Abstract

Harvey Bale argues that the concern about the 'public health' impact of trade agreements increasing patent protection in the pharmaceutical sector is contradicted by the empirical evidence that such protection had already rapidly advanced for over a decade in developing countries, without evidence of harm; and pharmaceutical-targeted compulsory licensing measures, in the few instances where they had existed, have been repealed. © 1999 The Society for International Development.