[Ip-health] DNA India- India-EU FTA gets flak in Europe

[Terri - Louise Beswick]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--
--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
India-EU FTA gets flak in Europe

Priyanka Golikeri / DNA

Monday, February 15, 2010 2:56 IST

Mumbai: Intellectual property (IP) in trade agreements could endanger
the poor man's access to affordable medicines, according to a veteran
member of the European Parliament.

  <http://ads.indiainfo.com/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a0589706>

David Martin, a Scottish Labour Party member of the European Parliament
has expressed concern over data exclusivity - a key IP provision, which
is a part of the free-trade agreement (FTA) being negotiated by India
and EU.

This provision can delay entry of generic medicines to the market and
could have repercussions not just for India, but also those countries to
which India supplies generics, said Martin.

In 2008-09, according to data from the ministry of commerce and
industry, India exported pharma products worth Rs 39,538 crore, with
African countries being major importers.

International humanitarian aid organisations like Medecins Sans
Frontieres buy more than 80% of their requirement for AIDS drugs, and
25% of drugs for malaria, TB, and antibiotics from India, said Leena
Menghaney, project manager, India, Campaign for Access to Essential
Medicines.

Moreover, approximately 50% of essential medicines that Unicef
distributes in developing countries come from India, while 75-80% of
medicines distributed by International Dispensary Association are made
in India.

Martin is the chairman of the European parliament's working group on
innovation, access to medicines and poverty related diseases and the
group plans to call on the EU to not push for provisions like data
exclusivity and patent extension in bilateral talks that can impact
generics and which go beyond what is mandated by the trade related
aspects of intellectual property rights (Trips) agreement of the World
Trade Organisation, which India is a signatory to.

While Article 10 of the draft FTA would impose on India the obligation
to grant data exclusivity, Article 9.3 would compel India to extend the
monopoly accorded by a patent for up to 5 more years (in addition to the
current 20), to compensate for the time required to get the marketing
approval for a medicinal product.

Data exclusivity refers to a certain period of time during which the
drug regulator cannot rely on innovator company's clinical trials data
to register a generic drug and implies that generic drugmakers would
have to conduct all the clinical trials before registering the generic
drug.

Amit Sengupta, general secretary of All-India People Science Network,
said it is not in developing countries' interests to go beyond Trips.
"In bilateral negotiations, developed economies ask for all that they
could not get through Trips."

According to B K Keayla, convenor, National Working Group on Patent
Laws, and trustee, Centre for Study of Global Trade System &
Development, there should be no space whatsoever for IP in trade talks.
"FTAs should be only for trade in goods and not involve IP issues."

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_india-eu-fta-gets-flak-in-europe_13
47904

--
Content-Description: image001.gif

[ image001.gif of type image/gif deleted ]