Unitaid, an international agency created two years ago to buy medicine to combat AIDS, TB and malaria, has endorsed the creation of an expert panel to explore so-called patent pools as a way to make expensive drugs more accessible to the poor.

The idea is for a pool to hold licenses on patented medicines, which Unitiad could then sub-license to others to manufacture the drugs at lower costs for poor nations. Initially, the effort would focus on drugs for infants with AIDS and for adult patients who have developed resistance to first-line drugs, according to The New York Times.

While patents have expired on most first-line AIDS drugs, which are available cheaply as generics, patents still exist on many second-line and pediatric meds, the paper writes, adding that only a small percentage of people on AIDS drugs in poor countries get newer meds. Moreover, patents may have multiple holders, including universities and governments that sublicense research in return for royalties.

Getting those rights may involve complex negotiations, the paper writes, and the panel would initially have only five experts in patent law and a budget of less than $2 million. “The panel might ask for licenses on second-generation drugs,” Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International, which participated in the patent pool talks. “The patent-holders will either say yes or no. But if they say no, it might raise some eyebrows.”