Access and benefit-sharing agreements

Explain the Access and Benefit-Sharing Agreement for biodiversity prospecting and discuss the pros and cons of this agreement. 

The CBD is made up of 42 Articles, of which Articles 20-42 are concerned with financial resources and mechanisms and issues related to arbitration and administrative matters. These do not directly impact the activities of natural product scientists, although several of the Articles do have an influence on the development of access and benefit-sharing agreements. It is Articles 1-19 that have direct relevance to the work of natural product scientists and a detailed discussion is available.32... 

Table I. African Countries that have Adopted National Access and Benefit-Sharing Agreement (ABS) Measures...

CBD requires that permission must be obtained before biological samples can be taken. To comply with the CBD, an Access and Benefit-Sharing Agreement (ABA) has to be agreed between the researcher and the source country providing the natural products. The ABA sets out the clauses with respect to the observation, development and benefit sharing accruing from the use of natural products for medical applications. 

Cheyne, P. (2004) Access and Benefit-Sharing Agreements bridging the gap between scientific partnerships and the Convention on Biological Diversity. In Seed Conservation Turning Science into Practice (Smith, R.D. et al., eds ). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew... 

In the case of major inventions the inventor may prefer to apply for a patent without foreign participation and try to sell non-exclusive patent rights to different industrial companies or to negotiate country-specific or use- and indication-specific exclusive agreements. At first sight this looks much more attractive for the inventor and may be possible for important inventions which can be split into reasonably sized, separate market segments. Any attempt to do so with minor inventions will most likely result in much less interest of the industrial partners and lower royalty rates for the inventor. Similar development cost will be calculated against smaller market shares due to restricted market access and immediate competitors and the overall benefit for all will be smaller. 

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