The Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) was established by the World Health Assembly in 2003:
“…to collect data and proposals from the different actors involved and produce an analysis of intellectual property rights, innovation, and public health, including the question of appropriate funding and incentive mechanisms for the creation of new medicines and other products against diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries…”
The CIPIH held 6 meetings between April 2004 and January 2006, a series of workshops, and commissioned 22 studies. It issued its final report in 2006.
The main recommendations of the CIPIH stem from the recognition that ‘the health needs of the poor and vulnerable, in particular women and children, must receive the highest priority from the world community.’
As the Commission states, ‘our task is how to alleviate this enormous burden which is an affront to our sense of shared humanity.’
The CIPIH recommendations laid the basis for the work of the WHO Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (known as IGWG), which developed the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Propertyadopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2008.