Access to Medicines: the Role of Intellectual property Law and Policy

Intellectual property (IP) policy is an important structural determinant of health. Patent policy influences the rate and direction of innovation for health, playing a positive or negative role depending on how it is shaped and implemented. Patent policy also has critical implications for access to existing medicines and medical technologies. This has been illustrated most dramatically in the context of the global Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)/ Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic. Prices for a three-drug combination of anti-retroviral (ARV) HIV therapy in 2000 from patent-holding companies exceeded USD $10,000 per person per year, ensuring that treatment could not be extended to the vast majority of those living with HIV around the world. Generic competition led to precipitous price reductions, so that today treatment can be provided for less than USD$75 per person per year. This history has contributed to the growing recognition that strong patent law applied to pharmaceuticals in developing countries undermines access to medicines and compromises the human right to health. While the relationship between IP and innovation is covered in a separate paper, it is worth noting here that there is little reason to expect that stronger patent rights in developing countries will lead to any substantial offsetting gains in innovation for the affected countries. Developing countries represent a very small share of the world’s pharmaceutical market, meaning that the marginal added value of stronger patent protection will be small, and is unlikely to outweigh the costs to access

HAVE ECONOMIC REFORMS PAID-OFF? GENDER OCCUPATIONAL INEQUALITY IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM IN EGYPT

This study considers the impact of over a decade of structural adjustment policies in Egypt on gender wage and occupational inequality. Using newly released Labor Force Sample Surveys (LFSS) for the years 2000-2004, a slight drop in public sector employment and a comparable increase in private sector employment for women is observed. Regardless of sector of employment, women still earn less than men, with private sector workers being the worst. Wage discrimination in the private sector in favor of men is evident at three groups of occupations: white collars, blue collars and professionals. Results also indicate occupational segregation and crowding of women in specific job types is a more serious issue in pay differences for blue collars in recent years, while pure discrimination is dictating wage differentials for professionals and white collars. Elements of productivity in terms of human capital endowments are not directly responsible for wage inequality in the private sector. Despite having less education, men receive higher wages for their comparative advantage in years of experience. Contrary to years of education, experience, as a factor endowment and a proxy for productivity, is highly valued and compensated for in favor of men

Culture and e-commerce: An exploration of the perceptions and attitudes of Egyptian internet users

This paper examines the perceptions and attitudes that Egyptian users hold towards electronic shopping sites. Internet sites are globally available, opening up huge potential markets for online retailers. However, it remains unclear whether sites designed for the US or European markets will be acceptable in other cultures. This paper describes an exploratory card sorting study conducted with Egyptian consumers. The study was designed to examine the e-commerce interface features that are most salient to this user group and to explore how these relate to user intentions to engage in internet shopping. The results support the role of site familiarity in predicting purchase intentions within this cultural setting

Ring-theoretic properties of PVMDs

We extend to Pr\"ufer $v$-multiplication domains some distinguished ring-theoretic properties of Pr\"ufer domains. In particular we consider the t##-property, the $t$-radical trace property, $w$-divisoriality and $w$-stability.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in Communications in Algebr

w-Divisorial Domains

We study the class of domains in which each w-ideal is divisorial, extending several properties of divisorial and totally divisorial domains to a much wider class of domains. In particular we consider PvMDs and Mori domains

The pluri-fine topology is locally connected

We prove that the pluri-fine topology on any open set $\Omega$ in $\mathbb{C}^{n}$ is locally connected. This answers a question by Fuglede in [4]. See also Bedford [6].Comment: 7 page