WTO TRIPS Council considers workshop On public health amendment

[The Straight Story]

WTO TRIPS Council considers workshop On public health amendment

By Kaitlin Mara

The World Trade Organization group on intellectual property rights met 2 March and ended early, discussing a potential workshop on an amendment intended to ease access to cheaper generic medicines in countries without a pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, a new proposal from Bolivia, and three separate longstanding IP issues with no major changes.

Countries were unable to agree to hold a workshop on the so-called “paragraph 6” agreement, which allow countries to issue a compulsory license on drugs primarily intended for export to developing countries in need of cheaper generic versions and unable to manufacture them themselves.

Instead, the chair of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council said he will hold informal consultations on the issue, though the details of when and how they will be conducted are not yet decided. The United States appears to be the main opponent of holding a workshop, according to several sources. For more background on this issue, see (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 1 March 2010).

Several countries also brought up another health issue in order to signal its continuing importance to their delegations, sources said. This issue is the delaying of generic drugs in transit through European ports, on which positions have remained unchanged since the October 2009 TRIPS Council (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 30 October 2009).

http://genevalunch.com/blog/2010/03/03/wto-workshop-for-cheaper-generic-drugs-developing-countries-fails/#more-38158