This is the July 26, 2018 draft of the UN declaration on NCDs.
NCD-Draft-co-facilitators-text-26July2018
[The earlier July 16, 2018 draft is available here: NCD-POL-DECLARATION-16JUL2018]
To nobody’s surprise, the July 26, 2018 version is very weak.
In the July 26, 2018 text, there is no mention of the WTO’s Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, even though a Doha reference is included in a parallel resolution on tuberculous, allowing the United States, Switzerland and the European Union to continue to tell developing countries the Doha Declaration does not apply to cancer and other non-communicable diseases.
There is nothing to acknowledge that prices for drugs for cancer and other NCDs are high, getting higher and unsustainable in a world where populations are aging. Insulin is not mentioned at all. The word “price” does not appear in the document.
There is no acknowledgement that access to treatment for NCDs is unequal, or that inequality of access is a market failure.
Nothing about making R&D costs, prices or data from trials more transparent.
The NCD resolution does not acknowledge the UN Secretary General High Level Panel on Access of Medicine report, or its recommendations on transparency, access and the importance of exploring the delinkage of R&D incentives from drug prices.
The draft endorses “exploring voluntary innovative financing mechanisms and partnerships,” and governments are asked to “engage with the private sector” and “invite the private sector . .. to reach health development objectives by . . . contributing to further improve access to and affordability” of medicines. Governments “commit to scale up” such things as “multi stakeholder dialogue mechanisms” and the sharing of “success and challenges” of providing prevention and control of NCDs, and other weak, forgettable objectives.