[Ip-health] Examiner, Lawrence Gist: Potential plans to criminalize generic medicines could hurt the poor

[Malini Aisola]

http://tinyurl.com/m4hqt7

Potential plans to criminalize generic medicines could hurt the poor
July 15, 2009

By Lawrence Gist

Negotiators working towards a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
(ACTA) are meeting in Morocco over the next two days to draw up
multilateral enforcement rules for intellectual property, including new
rules for patents and trademarks that are likely to make it harder for
generic companies to provide medicines for sick people in poor
countries.

Countries involved, including the European Union, United States, Canada,
Japan, Australia and New Zealand, are refusing to publish the draft
agreement for scrutiny.

=E2=80=9CBased on past form =E2=80=93 including recent seizures of generic =
medicines by
the EU =E2=80=93 the secrecy surrounding this deal raises real fears that p=
oor
people=E2=80=99s interests will be ignored,=E2=80=9D said Oxfam policy advi=
ser Rohit
Malpani.

The European Union is pushing for a deal that would require all
countries negotiating ACTA to increase seizures and prosecute companies
who produce generic medicines legally in countries such as India for
sale in other countries, including those not even engaged in ACTA
negotiations.

These rules could encourage big pharmaceutical companies to file
frivolous patents to extend their monopolies and high prices on
medicines, while at the same time discouraging the practice of parallel
importation. Parallel importation is an important way for a country to
reduce medicine prices by enabling it to import a patented product
marketed in another country at a lower price.

=E2=80=9CThe lack of transparency is completely unacceptable and increases
suspicions that the Agreement under negotiation is on behalf of narrow
corporate interests,=E2=80=9D said Malpani. =E2=80=9CUnder these circumstan=
ces, we can
only assume that the final text could do great harm in developing
countries and undermine the balance between the protection of
intellectual property and the need to provide affordable medicines for
poor people.=E2=80=9D

We are further suspicious of the exclusion from negotiations of Brazil,
a country that would be likely to support the wider availability of
generics and discourage any extension of intellectual property rights
that would exceed minimum obligations under global trade rules. Of the
12 states plus the European Union taking part, only two, Mexico and
Morocco, are developing countries.

Since November 2008, customs officials in the European Union have seized
at least 18 shipments of legal generic medicines from India and China to
developing countries, including medicines to treat HIV and AIDS and
heart disease. In spite of criticism from public health agencies,
including UNITAID, the WHO and many civil society groups, the EU is
refusing to re-examine the regulation under which these seizures have
been made and could now pushing for it to be extended globally through
free trade agreements and ACTA.

Malpani said: =E2=80=9CIt is unacceptable for countries to negotiate any ne=
w
international standard on intellectual property without addressing the
public health needs of countries that could be adversely affected. The
European Union should halt its unlawful seizures of generic medicines
rather than trying to persuade other countries to put their legal
systems at the service of drug companies.=E2=80=9D




--
Malini Aisola
Knowledge Ecology International
1621 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 500, Washington DC 20009
malini.aisola@keionline.org|Tel: +1.202.332.2670|Fax: +1.202.332.2673