Increasing access to affordable, appropriate medicines:

The Pool’s mission is to bring down the prices of HIV medicines and facilitate development of better-adapted HIV medicines, such as simplified “fixed-dose combinations” and special formulations for children, by creating a pool of relevant patents for licensing to generic manufacturers and product development partnerships. Our goal is to increase access to quality, safe, effective, appropriate and affordable treatment for HIV in low- and middle-income countries

The Pool negotiates public health-driven voluntary licence agreements for patents on HIV medicines, in order to enable generic competition (which lowers prices) and facilitate new product development. [Read more about how the Pool works.]

The Pool aims in particular to facilitate the development of HIV medicines that are better-adapted for resource-limited settings: examples include medicines that do not require refrigeration, special formulations for children, and ‘fixed-dose combinations’ that combine multiple medicines into one pill and ease treatment for patients and treatment providers alike. [Read more about HIV/AIDS needs.]

Our Guiding Principles:

The Pool operates according to the following set of guiding principles. These principles inform the Pool’s work and its licensing decisions.

• The Pool will be driven by public health needs.
• The Pool will focus on antiretroviral medicines (ARVs).
• The Pool will operate on a voluntary basis.
• The Pool will focus on developing countries.
• The Pool will focus on achieving price reductions through increased competition for production and distribution.
• The Pool will enable access to patents to facilitate the development of appropriate and adapted formulations.
• The Pool will be sufficiently flexible and innovative to adapt to evolving health needs and opportunities, as appropriate.
• The  Pool will leverage existing mechanisms (e.g. WHO pre-qualification [pdf], US  FDA, EMA, and other stringent regulatory agencies) for quality assurance.
• Key licence terms and conditions will be standardised across licences to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.
• Licences will be available on a non-exclusive and non-discriminatory basis in order to enhance competition and comply with anti-trust law requirements.
• The Pool will be additional to other mechanisms and measures to promote access to medicines.
• The Pool will operate within the current intellectual property framework.  Patent holders will be compensated through royalties as appropriate.
• The Pool is independent.