E-DRUG: Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) on South Africa
Dispute over Parallel Imports of Pharmaceuticals
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On Monday, October 6, 1997, the South African government's Portfolio
Committee on Health held hearings on proposed legislation to enhance
competition for pharmaceuticals. The South African government has
proposed an aggressive program which features the promotion of
generic drugs, and which eliminates barriers to parallel imports of
pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry and the United States
government has lobbied against several features of the legislation.
CPT's comments were supportive of the South African government's
proposals, and focused mostly on the issue of parallel importing of
pharmaceutical drugs, plus a brief discussion of the dispute over
protections for health registration data.
The CPT comments concern two controversial areas of international
law concerning intellectual property. Pharmaceutical companies are
seeking to prohibit cross border trade in pharmaceuticals by
asserting that such trade violates patent and trademark protections.
CPT effectively rebutted the industry's claims, and provided
empirical evidence of benefits of parallel imports for HIV drugs.
CPT also briefly responded to pharmaceutical companies assertions
that international law requires regulatory barriers to the use of
scientific data about pharmaceutical drug safety and efficacy --
making it more difficult for the introduction of generic drugs.
CPT comments are on the web at:
http://www.cptech.org/pharm/sa/sa-10-97.html
Anyone interested to receive a copy by fax, please send me a note.
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
Center for Study of Responsive Law
P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 | http://www.cptech.org
voice 202.387.8030 | fax 202.234.5176 | love@cptech.org
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