E-drug: European Voice on Access to drugs
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Dear Friends,
This week the European Voice published the following article:
http://www.european-voice.com/thisweek/index.html
Drug firms fight Lamy 'threat' to patents on life-saving medicines
By Simon Taylor
THE European pharmaceuticals industry is battling to persuade the European
Commission to drop its call for measures which campaigners claim would give
some of the world's poorest people access to cheap life-saving medicines.
Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy held a secret meeting with the heads of four
leading pharmaceuticals firms including Glaxo Wellcome, Aventis and
Boeringer Ingelheim last week to discuss proposed changes to the World
Trade Organisation's intellectual-property protection rules.
Under the existing TRIPs accord, which governs trade-related aspects of
intellectual property rights, governments can cancel firms' patents on
drugs in special circumstances in response to health crises such as AIDS
through a system known as compulsory licensing.
The Commission called last autumn for that right to be extended to 306
drugs listed by the World Health Organisation as 'essential medicines'.
Supporters of the move claim that 94% of AIDS sufferers cannot afford the
drugs they need because of high prices. The Thai government has, for
example, recently been considering cancelling the patent on AIDS drug
didanosine to cut the cost of the treatment.
But the pharmaceutical companies are bitterly opposed to the use of
compulsory licensing, arguing that it does little to help people in
developing countries because poor nations lack the basic infrastructure to
deliver medicines effectively. They also warn that weak patent laws can be
used by traders who buy up the cheaper drugs and sell them back into more
lucrative markets in rich countries, hitting the profits of firms which
have invested in developing new products.
"Patents are an essential part of our business. We have to fight all
attempts to erode intellectual-property rights," said a spokesman for the
European pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA.
But the global healthcare charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), which is
campaigning for developing countries to be given access to vital medicines,
argues that compulsory licensing is the only solution when companies are
unwilling to offer drugs at affordable prices or to give approval
voluntarily for medicines to be produced locally.
Commission officials have refused to comment on the outcome of last week's
meeting between Lamy and industry representatives, but campaigners fear
that the Commissioner is moving towards accepting the companies' arguments.
They point to comments he made at a European Parliament hearing two weeks
ago when he said that he did not think developing countries' health
problems were linked to access to essential medicines but rather that it
was a problem of "distribution and infrastructure".
MSF points out that although countries have the right to issue compulsory
licenses under WTO rules, they can come under extreme political and
economic pressure from richer states if they try to do so.
Last year, the US threatened trade sanctions against South Africa when it
tried to introduce new laws to allow compulsory licensing. Lamy's
predecessor Sir Leon Brittan supported Washington's action, warning South
African Vice-President Thabo M'Beki in a letter in March 1998 that
Pretoria's law on medicines was "at variance with South Africa's
obligations under the WTO" and "its implementation would negatively affect
the interests of the European pharmaceutical industry".
US President Bill Clinton only dropped the threat of trade sanctions after
high-profile protests by AIDS campaigners.
? European Voice