E-drug: EU and TRIPS
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Dear E-Drug members,
Herewith a document you might find of some interest:
EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy has been at the forefront of the
discussion on medicines and intellectual property, especially at the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) Conference in Doha in 2001. Clearly, there is still
a great deal to be done to improve the poorest people's access to essential
medicines. The Commission is convinced that solutions can be found if all
those involved work together to draw up and implement a response to the
problem.
A document concerning the countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity
in the pharmaceutical sector has been presented to the WTO, while a
Communication is being drafted that will propose to the WTO to create an
exception in the Trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS)
Agreement. The idea is not to eliminate the protection of intellectual
property. It is rather to allow members to export to developing countries,
without quantitative limits, pharmaceutical products produced under
compulsory licence, thus allowing countries without production capacity to
call on other countries to import the necessary pharmaceutical products.
You will find the full document 'Access to medicines: the true story, the
state of negotiations' on the DG Trade website:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/csc/med05_en.htm
Joseph Savirimuthu
The Liverpool Law School
University of Liverpool
Chatham Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZS
email: jsaviri@liverpool.ac.uk
Tel: 0151 794 2806
Fax: 0151 794 2829
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