Kenyan government withdraws ammendments to Industrial Property Act
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The Government of Kenya withdrew an amendment to the Industrial Property Act, which would have prohibited parallel imports of drugs. This innocuous looking piece of amendment would have meant that:
1. The government and their procurement agencies would be forced to first get consent from the medicines patent holder before shopping around the world for the best price and importing that medicine into Kenya
2. The government would be required to first negotiate with a patent holder before issuing a license for a third party to manufacture or import a medicine needed to address serious problems of medicines supply during health emergencies
This amendment was carefully drafted to alter the detail of Industrial Property Act of 2001 under a miscellaneous amendment bill which would have killed the very spirit of the act which was to make drugs cheaper.
It was surprising that during the first two readings very few members of the parliament including the Parliamentary Health Committee noticed the implications of the ammnendment.
The Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal wrote to the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs about the implications the amendment would have on the drug prices. Members of the civil societies wrote to the Parliament and had demonstrations against the amendments.
On 27th July after realizing the implications of the amendment; the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs told the Parliament it was withdrawing the amendments
Dr.S.K.Sharif
Ministry of Health
mailto:sksharif@ikenya.com