[Pharm-policy] European Voice on access to medicines

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.european-voice.com/thisweek/stories/2.pl5

Drug firms fight Lamy 'threat' to patents on life-saving medicines

By Simon Taylor

9 March 2000
                       

THE European pharmaceuticals industry is battling to persuade the
European Commission to drop its call for measures which campaigners
claim would give some of the world's poorest people access to cheap
life-saving medicines.  Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy held a secret
meeting with the heads of four leading pharmaceuticals firms including
Glaxo Wellcome, Aventis and Boeringer Ingelheim last week to discuss
proposed changes to the World Trade Organisation's intellectual-property
protection rules. 

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Commission officials have refused to comment on the outcome of last
week's meeting between Lamy and industry representatives, but
campaigners fear that the Commissioner is moving towards accepting the
companies' arguments.  They point to comments he made at a European
Parliament hearing two weeks ago when he said that he did not think
developing countries' health problems were linked to access to essential
medicines but rather that it was a problem of "distribution and
infrastructure". 

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Last year, the US threatened trade sanctions against South Africa when
it tried to introduce new laws to allow compulsory licensing. Lamy's
predecessor Sir Leon Brittan supported Washington's action, warning
South African Vice-President Thabo M'Beki in a letter in March 1998 that
Pretoria's law on medicines was "at variance with South Africa's
obligations under the WTO" and "its implementation would negatively
affect the interests of the European pharmaceutical industry".  US
President Bill Clinton only dropped the threat of trade sanctions after
high-profile protests by AIDS campaigners." 

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