Early this week, the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) adopted a resolution at the World Trade Organization (WTO) that allows least-developed countries (LDC) an eight year extension on an exemption in implementing intellectual property rules under the TRIPS Agreement.
However, the exemption excludes pharmaceutical products, for which LDCs will now have to go back to the WTO ahead of a 2016 deadline to renegotiate an exemption extension for drugs and vaccines, after the US and EU refused to accept the LDCs’ request for a comprehensive extension.
Reacting to the decision of June 11, Aziz ur Rehman, Intellectual Property Advisor, Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign called this decision a “half-hearted compromise.”
He pointed out that it was clear that wealthy countries are ignoring the huge health challenges LDCs face by refusing to grant them a longer and more complete extension. “In the meantime, LDCs should take advantage of this decision and roll back their existing level of IP protection,” he advised.
Stating the MSF position he said, “MSF is increasingly seeing ever more unaffordable and inaccessible medicines in developing countries that have implemented the TRIPS Agreement and for least-developed countries to be forced to do the same in 2016 would be disastrous. Developed countries must drop their hard line mentality and allow LDCs to remain exempt from introducing stringent IP regulations on pharmaceutical products for as long as they are least-developed.”
Ahead of a transition period that allows least-developed countries (LDC) to avoid introducing some intellectual property (IP) rules expiring this month, LDC members of the WTO had requested an extension that would enable them to remain exempt from implementing nearly all provisions of the TRIPS agreement, including for pharma products, until they are no longer classified as ‘least-developed’.
In the face of opposition led by the US and the EU, a compromise was developed. WTO members agreed to extend the deadline by eight more years, until July 1, 2021. This outcome allows LDCs to access more affordable medical technologies such as diagnostics and medical devices for a few more years. Critically, LDCs are also in a position to roll-back existing level of IP protection to meet domestic policy objectives.
However, this compromise does not address the looming 2016 deadline of a second transition period, which exempts LDCs from implementing stringent IP regulations for pharma products. Withdrawal of pharma products from the extension agreement is a significant lost opportunity and LDCs will now be required to ask for a similar extension request in 2015. Given the crucial importance of pharma products, an MSF release advocates that LDCs should insist on an unconditional extension, which should last as long as a WTO member is classified as ‘least developed’.
EP News Bureau – Mumbai