[Ip-health] Carlos Correa in the WHO Bulletin (abstract): Implications of bilateral free trade agreements on access to medicines

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

The full text of Carlos Correa's article can be found here:

http://www.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/84/5/399.pdf

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http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/5/correa0506abstract/en/index.html

Implications of bilateral free trade agreements on access to medicines
Carlos Mar=EDa Correa


ABSTRACT

The TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) mandated the
introduction of protection of intellectual property rights, notably
patents, for pharmaceutical products. While the implications for the
access to medicines contained in the terms of this Agreement raised
significant concerns, a recent new wave of free trade agreements,
negotiated outside the WTO, requires even higher levels of intellectual
property protection for medicines than those mandated by that Agreement.
The measures involved include the extension of the patent term beyond 20
years; prohibition of use of test data on drug efficacy and safety for
certain periods for the approval of generic products; the linkage
between drug registration and patent protection; in some cases,
limitations to the grounds for granting compulsory licences. This
article reviews some of these measures that further limit the
competition of generic products and discusses their possible implication
for access to medicines.