Patenting of Pharmaceuticals and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Laws, Institutions, Practices, and Politics

摘要

The sweeping title of this book is indicative of its central weakness: it tries to cover too much, with no clear argument. Despite appearing to highlight the relationship between pharmaceuti-cals and development, the book has almost nothing to say about economic development beyond a set of long winded and often repetitive normative arguments about the patent system undermining access to essential drugs in poor countries. References to economic development are limited and overly reliant on selective and often dated secondary sources. If you are an economist expecting a serious discussion of the economic strengths and weaknesses of building domestic capacity to produce drugs, or of the economic trade-offs involved in the patent system, this book is not for you.