The head of the World Health Organisation on Monday said it was vital that patients in poor countries are not denied access to medicines against diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis on cost grounds.
"I am fully committed to equitable access" to medicines, WHO Director General Margaret Chan told the opening session of a special working group on public health, innovation and intellectual property.
"I am aware that the price of medicines and other products can be prohibitive, effectively blocking access to care," Chan said. The WHO chief acknowledged the need for innovation in public health and drug research - which pharmaceutical companies say is funded by profits on sales - and the complex nature of the debate.
"The challenge is to work on multiple fronts: to meet the immediate need for equitable access to quality, affordable medicines, while also, at the same time, working to stimulate innovation," she said. Equally, "we cannot allow the costs of health care to drive impoverished households even deeper into poverty," she warned.
The working group was set up last year in the wake of a WHO-commissioned report of the same name, headed by former Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss. Its report called on the pharmaceutical industry to slash the price of drugs sold in developing countries - something companies insist they have already done in many cases.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations argues that the price and patent issue falls outside the mandate of the WHO and should instead be discussed only at the World Trade Organisation.
Earlier this year, Dreifuss accused Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis of trying to intimidate India in a legal case against the country's patent law.
Novartis unsuccessfully appealed against a rejection of its patent application for the Glivec cancer drug, and challenged Article 3D of India's new patent law, which does not grant patents for modifications of existing drugs.
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