Pharmaceutical patents: reconciling the human right to health with the incentive to invent - ScienceDirect

"Highlights

• Drug discovery is exciting and transformative but conflicts exist between the incentive to invent and the rights of others to access medicines
• Tensions between fundamental rights to access essential medicines and rights of the inventor and investors are considered 
• Effective incentives to innovate in developed countries can lead to global improvements in access to medicine if the intellectual property system is calibrated to permit this 
• Compulsory licensing and alternative mechanisms facilitating global access to drugs in the context of rights to the highest attainable standard of health and intellectual property are also discussed..."