[Ip-health] Oxfam: Pull Back on Stringent Intellectual Property Rules in Trade Deals Encouraging

[Mike Palmedo]

Press release (text below)
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/press_releases/pull-back-on=
-stringent-intellectual-property-rules-in-trade-deals-encouraging

Oxfam Report:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/briefing_paper=
s/all-costs-no-benefits

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Pull Back on Stringent Intellectual Property Rules in Trade Deals
Encouraging

3 April 2007

For more information, contact:
Laura Rusu, Press Officer
202-496-3620
202-459-3739 (mobile)
lrusu@oxfamamerica.org

WASHINGTON =97 International aid agency Oxfam America is encouraged by
recent news reports indicating that the Democratic leadership in the US
Congress is working to pull back the stringent intellectual property
protections included in the free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated by
the Administration with developing countries, such as Peru and Colombia,
an effort that would restore a balance between promoting innovation and
protecting public health.

Oxfam applauds Chairmen Charles Rangel and Sander Levin for spearheading
the effort to scale back the =93TRIPS-plus=94 rules currently included in
FTAs with Colombia, Peru and Panama, which go far beyond existing
intellectual property rules at the World Trade Organization. Media
reports however, indicate that the pharmaceutical industry has been
actively lobbying against any such changes in intellectual property
rules, arguing it would undermine the goal of getting medicines to
developing countries. Yet new Oxfam research refutes such claims.

In a recently-released study entitled =93All Costs, No Benefits: How the
US-Jordan FTA Affects Access to Medicines,=94 Oxfam highlights new data
from the five years in which the US FTA with Jordan has been in effect
to show that TRIPS-plus rules have contributed to a significant increase
in medicine prices in Jordan.

=93Medicine prices have increased 20% in Jordan since the free trade
agreement was signed in 2001, and higher medicine prices are now
threatening the sustainability of government public health programs,=94
said Stephanie Burgos, Trade Policy Advisor for Oxfam America. =93At the
same time, higher levels of intellectual property protection have done
nothing to improve foreign direct investment, enhance local research and
development, or increase accessibility of new medicines.=94

In particular, Oxfam found that one TRIPS-plus measure, data
exclusivity, delayed generic competition in Jordan for 79% of medicines
newly launched by 21 multinational pharmaceutical companies between 2002
and mid-2006, medicines that would have otherwise been available in an
affordable generic form. Best selling medicines to treat diabetes and
heart disease in Jordan now cost anywhere from two to six times more
than in Egypt, a neighboring country without TRIPS-plus rules preventing
generic competition, according to the report.

Data exclusivity is a new system of monopoly power, separate from
patents, that blocks the marketing approval of generic medicines for
five or more years. Drug regulatory authorities are prevented from using
the clinical trial data of the patented medicine to show the safety and
efficacy of an equivalent generic drug, thereby delaying or preventing
generic competition. Other TRIPS-plus intellectual property rules that
should be removed from FTAs include patent extensions and linkage of the
patent status with marketing approval, prohibiting the registration of
generic medicines until the patent has expired. These rules delay the
introduction of affordable, generic medicines and have a detrimental
effect on access to medicines for the poorest.

=93Congressional Democrats have done well to listen to concerns raised for
years by public health and development advocates that stringent new
intellectual property rules will limit access to affordable medicines,=94
said Burgos. =93Now we have clear evidence that as a result of data
exclusivity measures in Jordan, additional expenditures are required by
both the public health system and individuals for many new medicines
needed to treat numerous non-communicable diseases that are leading
causes of death and disability in that country. This is an opportunity
for the Administration to take heed and remove TRIPS-plus provisions
from current and future trade deals.=94

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Mike Palmedo
Research Coordinator
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
American University, Washington College of Law
4910 Massachutsetts Ave., NW Washington, DC 20016
T - 202-274-4442 | F 202-274-0659
mpalmedo@wcl.american.edu