[Ip-health] CPTech response to Roche Statement

[James Love]

Roche Statement:
http://www.roche.com/med-cor-2005-10-18

"Roche is clearly feeling the heat, but also falling well short of
the measures that would best protect the public health.   The best
thing for the public would be an open license to any generic
manufacturer to sell oseltamivir, in return for a reasonable
royalty.  We don't know the details of the license agreements between
Roche and Giliead, and in particular, we don't know who has effective
control of the patents at this point.  But in the end, it shouldn't
matter.  Governments should be prepared to deal with a situation like
this.   Certainly the Bayer/Ciprofloxacin/Anthrax crisis should have
been a wake-up call.  Every government that does not have sufficient
stockpiles of this or any other relevant medicine should immediately
issue compulsory licenses to any qualified supplier of the medicine,
including companies who would need to use the 30 August 2005 WTO
waiver of the TRIPS export restrictions in order to supply them.  Any
government that put its own population at risk in 2003 by opting out
of the 30 August 2005 WTO decision as an importer should now notify
they WTO they have changed their mind.  These are basic measures that
countries should take to create the legal environment to address such
emergencies.  This is unlikely to the be the last time patent issues
are relevant to public health emergencies.   Political leaders should
have real plans to deal with these situations."

   James Love, CTPech

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James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040