Who Develops Innovations in Medicine for the Poor? Trends in Patent Applications Related to Medicines for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Diseases

Who invents medicines for the poor of the world? This question becomes very important where the WTO allows low income countries to be unbound by the TRIPS agreement. This agreement concerns medicines for infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. These diseases cause serious damage to low income countries. Under these circumstances, some scholars wonder if anyone will continue innovative activities related to treating these diseases. This paper sought to answer this question by collecting and analyzing patent data of medicines and vaccines for diseases using the database of the Japan Patent Office. Results indicate that private firms have led in innovation not only for global diseases such as HIV/AIDS but also diseases such as malaria that are spreading exclusively in low income countries. Innovation for the three infectious diseases is diverse among firms, and frequent patent applications by high-performing pharmaceutical firms appear prominent even after R&D expenditure, economies of scale, and economies of scope are taken into account.

Farming strategy of African smallholder farmers in transition from traditional to alternative agriculture : the case of the Nupe in central Nigeria

It is worthwhile to understand farming strategies of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, especially those of farmers who are in transition from traditional to alternative agriculture in terms of adoption of innovative technologies. In a case study of inland valleys in central Nigeria, we investigated the farming strategy of Nupe farmers who have a long-term tradition of wet rice cultivation and indigenous methods of land preparation for soil, water and weed management. In this region, a new method of land preparation has recently been introduced along with a recommendation to use improved seeds and chemical fertilizers. Our findings reveal that Nupe farmers directly sow traditional seeds and apply a marginal amount of fertilizer to paddy plots prepared by labor-saving methods on drought-prone hydromorphic valley fringes and flood-susceptible valley bottoms, whereas they preferentially transplanted improved seedlings and applied a relatively large quantity of fertilizer to paddy fields prepared by a labor-intensive and mechanized method on a valley position where they can access to optimum water condition (less risky against the drought and flood).