Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
( L - R ) MANDELA AND BERNAL
POORER COUNTRIES like Jamaica will now find it easier to obtain cheaper generic versions of patented drugs, following a World Trade Organization (WTO) decision on Tuesday.
The WTO converted a previous 'waiver' into a permanent amendment of its Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
The Jamaican Government's supply of affordable Aids anti-retrovirals (ARVs) through the Minister of Health's ARV Universal Access Programme provides a month's supply at $1,000 per person is "almost exclusively" reliant on generic imports said minister Junor.
Without the WTO decision, "We would be severely restricted in our efforts if we were to be subjected to a regime of negative prices," he told The Financial Gleaner.
From October 2004 to August of this year, 1,246 adults and 141 children were started on ARVs under the programme. Two per cent of Jamaica's population are infected by the HIV infection virus.
The waiver, and now the permanent decision, frees developing countries from having to import licensed pharmaceuticals, which are many more times expensive than the generic versions. It was imposed following the collapse of a lawsuit by major pharmaceutical companies against South Africa for the country's imports of generic ARVs.
The companies took action following former President Nelson Mandela's passing of a law allowing his country to import, sell and also compulsorily license generic drugs thus undercutting pharmaceutical companies.
He did this in response to the 'Rainbow Nation's' growing HIV/Aids crisis. It is the worst affected country in the world, with 5.3 million South Africans now infected.
The companies had argued generics threatened their profits and research and development, which they said could ultimately lead to a cure for the virus. But just one per cent of their drug revenues were coming from Africa and their lawsuit became a public relations disaster.
ROW
A similar row erupted over the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu, manufactured by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, one of only two drugs effective in laboratory tests against the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
While the drug was once selling so badly its inventors asked for their license to be returned, Roche now stands to benefit from an order from the United States Government in preparedness for a possible pandemic. Estimates for Roche's revenue from this deal range up to US$1.8 billion.
Roche has begun talks with generic manufacturers with a view to allowing their production of Tamiflu and has already given permission for Taiwan to do so.
TIMELY
"It is timely that this decision has been taken especially in light of an impending bird flu pandemic," said local attorney Neil Hamaty "The recent capitulation by the makers of Tamiflu to permit its production of the drug by third parties illustrates the change in jurisprudence. Here, public interest and public health considerations outweigh strict application of clinical legal
principles."
Roche, "would not let patents get in the way of patients," William Burns, its Pharma's division chief executive was quoted by the SF Gate newspaper as saying.
In a statement director of the CARICOM regional negotiating machinery Richard Bernal, said the affect of such concessions were minimal to developed economies "... yet, by comparison to the size of these small economies, the effect on the development prospects of the WTO members concerned is enormous."
GOOD FOR THE CARIBBEAN
The decision to make the waiver permanent was a victory for developing nations, said Dr. Bernal. This is especially good for the Caribbean which has an especially high AIDS infection rate. This decision has also been resisted by a lobby including the big pharmaceutical companies," he told The Financial Gleaner.
But, he cautioned, the WTO's treatment of this issue has no implication on its earlier rulings on bananas and sugar, issues to be discussed at the WTO's Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong next week. "It doesn't give reason for undue optimism on other matters," he added.
