Canada has been given a deadline of October 7 to scrap a law allowing pharmaceutical companies to stockpile medicines under patent, so that they can be released in bulk as soon as this protection has lapsed.
The order has been made by a World Trade Organisation arbiter, after Canada and the European Union failed to reach agreement on a date for Canada to abide by an earlier WTO disputes panel ruling that its law broke world trade rules (PJ, April 8, p529).
The Canadian government had been pressing for a deadline of 11 months from the date of the adoption of panel's ruling on April 7. But the arbiter, in a decision that criticised Canada, determined that a "reasonable period of time" for Canada to implement the ruling was six months.
Canada had attempted to justify the delay by claiming that the revocation of its Manufacturing and Storage of Patented Medicines Regulations would be a very sensitive political matter in Canada and that extensive consultations with stakeholders, interest groups and the general public were required.
The EU claimed that the government's task was far simpler, that a single clause in Canadian law had to be scrapped, and that this could take just 45 to 60 days from publication of the proposal in the Canada Gazette, which would itself take 30 days.