Hope for affordable medicines in developing world
Generic copies of patented medicines should soon start to become available in developing countries that cannot afford to buy the full-price original.
A World Trade Organization decision in November 2001 to allow this had
been held up by the United States because of concerns raised by multinational
companies that generic copies would leak back to richer nations and undermine
their patents. These concerns have been satisfied by an agreement reached
on 30 August.
The WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) agreement allows countries to override international patents
that permitted local manufacturers to produce medicines for domestic
consumption, but not for export. This means that countries with no domestic
pharmaceutical industry were unable to benefit from the exemption. The
new agreement means that exports will be possible to other developing
countries. To reach the agreement, 23 developed countries have agreed
that they will not permit imports of such generic medicines. Poorer countries
have agreed to adopt anti-smuggling measures to prevent parallel importing
to nations that can afford patented original products. |
