Intellectual Property and Access to Health Technologies: Questions and Answers

This document provides a review of key issues related to intellectual property policies and their potential impact on access to HIV and other medicines. It is intended as an introduction to the issues for civil society engaged in the response to HIV and other health concerns.

By the end of 2015, almost 16 million people living with HIV were accessing antiretroviral therapy. The world would never have reached this historic achievement had it not been for the dramatic decline in the price of antiretroviral medicines over the past two decades—from just over US$ 10 000 per patient per year in the late 1990s to around US$ 100 per patient per year in many sub-Saharan countries in 2015. This drop in price was the result of sustained advocacy on the part of countries and communities affected by HIV to increase the availability of quality-assured generic antiretroviral medicines, in part by addressing intellectual property rights (IPR) issues.