Weltweiter Patentschutz für pharmazeutische Innovationen: gibt es sozialverträgliche Alternativen?

This paper discusses alternative incentive mechanisms for encouraging pharmaceutical innovations that support global health policy priorities. Patent buyouts, in which a public fund pays a mark-up on private valuations from sealed-bid second-price auctions, would boost the efficiency of research and technology diffusion in areas suffering severe market failures, like vaccine research to fight international epidemics of infectious disease. The implementation of patent buyouts could be financed by tapping the expected savings to key players within the international health economy.