Study on Protection of the Right to Health, Access to Medicines and the Construction of the Rule of Law for Medicine Patents

The Access to Medicines is related to the basic rights of people's rights to life and health. It has been widely recognized by international conventions and has become a basic duty of the state to ensure and improve the level of citizens' access to medicines. At the same time, in the face of increasingly widespread uncertainties in modern society, building a fair and efficient legal system for medicines access is a necessary measure to promote citizens' trust in the government and maintain the legitimacy of power. In the conditions of 1.3 billion population and an unbalanced and inadequate economic development, China strives to ensure that its citizens’ medicines are economically affordable through continuous improvement of the legal system and arrangements, and to encourage local pharmaceutical companies to develop and manufacture better-quality medicines. On the premise of respecting the status of market players and property rights of pharmaceutical companies, China comprehensively uses diversified tools such as information, standards, market access, and competition law enforcement to establish a legal system for medicines accessibility from two channels: supply guarantee and price control. Particular attention is paid to the adjustment of the medical and social insurance and essential medicines systems. In recent years, China has focused on improving the pharmaceutical patent system, promoting the balanced development of local original research medicines and generic medicines, as well as the overall optimization and upgrading of the pharmaceutical industry through the protection of patent rights and appropriate restrictions. Driven by the economic and trade agreement reached between China and the United States in 2020, China's Patent Law will introduce a drug patent term extension system and a drug patent linkage system, and further improve the legal mechanism to encourage innovative activities of pharmaceutical companies.