Health-care activists have long maintained that the system for granting patents on drugs denies the poor access to essential medicines and discourages pharmaceutical firms from collaborating to develop new ones for neglected diseases. Several initiatives announced this week, some focused on collaboration and others on openness, may help to remedy those problems. On July 14th GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British drugs giant, announced that it would waive patent restrictions to allow generic drugs firms to copy its HIV drugs for sale in poor countries.
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