Commentary: Innovation Policy for a New Era

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Intellectual property policy is a key social and political issue for all countries today. This is particularly evident in the area of pharmaceutical and other medical technologies, especially given the appalling global disparities in health outcomes around the world, the importance of health to development, and the high economic returns of investment in health. Appropriate medicines, diagnostics, vaccines, and monitoring equipment are, of course, a key component of health care systems. And intellectual property policy — and most particularly, patent policy — can have substantial effects on the price and availability of medicines and other medical technologies.