[Ip-health] Europe urged to fund DC generic drugs industry

[Michelle Childs]

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8bf02c70-29c6-11dc-a530-000b5df10621.html


Europe urged to fund generic drugs industry

By Andrew Boundsin Brussels

Published: July 4 2007 03:00 | Last updated: July 4 2007 03:00

Europe must fund the creation of a generic drugs industry in poor
countries as the long-term solution to the developing world's health
crisis, the European parliament will demand next week.

If the European Union does not act, MEPs from all parties have
threatened to block ratification of a modification of the
intellectual property protection regime that guards drug patents.

The 1994 Trips agreement, hammered out at the World Trade
Organisation, is under pressure from Brazil and Thailand, which have
issued compulsory licences for domestic companies to make copies of
branded medicines.

Western drugmakers say that without patent protection they will
invest less in research on new products.

In the late 1990s, Trips buckled as HIV/Aids swept Africa, leading to
pressure to allow the copying of expensive patented drugs.

In 2003, WTO members agreed a temporary waiver to allow countries to
use compulsory licensing in an emergency, or import cheap generic
drugs if they did not produce them. But MEPs argue that no small
developing country has invoked the clause, for fear of losing aid.

A parliamentary report says: "In 3=BD years not a single importing
country has notified the Trips council that they intend to use the
mechanism to import cheap life-saving medicines".

Gianluca Susta, the Italian Liberal MEP responsible for parliament's
position on Trips, said providing subsidised drugs increased the
dependency of poor states. Mr Susta ruled out any deal to amend the
legislation.

"The only long-term solution is to give these countries . . . the
ability to provide for the health needs of their population. That
means helping them build up their own production and research
facilities," he said.

Mr Susta declined to put a figure on the fund, which would probably
have to come from European Union aid budgets.

If the fund was not established, he said, parliament would block EU
attempts to have the waiver converted into a permanent protocol to
Trips. The European Commission believes that would be counter-
productive as the deal is the best that poor countries would get.

So far only the US, Switzerland, El Salvador, South Korea, India,
Norway and the Philippines have ratified the protocol, which requires
the assent of two-thirds of WTO members.

"If we do not get what we want we will not give our assent for the
ratification of the protocol. That would be very embarrassing for the
EU," said Mr Susta.

Mr Susta said he had been lobbied heavily by the pharmaceutical
industry, which was unhappy with his report, but argued that public
health overrode their arguments.

The MEPs, from the six main groups in parliament, will also ask Peter
Mandelson, trade commissioner, to remove patent protection for
pharmaceutical products from trade negotiations with developing
countries. They are part of deals with 70-plus former European
colonies to be signed this year.

Mr Mandelson will debate the issues on July 11 in Strasbourg. His
spokesman said he would not seek "any provisions that could undermine
the Trips flexibilities" under the waiver but would not comment
further before the debate.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007





Michelle Childs
Head of European Affairs
Knowledge Ecology International
michelle.childs@cptech.org