An eleventh-hour deal to provide cut-price drugs for the world’s poorest people was being finalised in Geneva this week in an effort to save next month’s trade summit in Cancun, Mexico, from collapse.
After being delayed for nine months by intense lobbying from United States pharmaceutical companies, the agreement between key developing countries and Washington is meant to open the door for poor countries to import copies of life-saving drugs without running foul of global patent laws.
But fears expressed by US pharmaceutical companies, led by Pfizer, that relaxing the rules would open Western markets to a flood of copycat drugs, have forced poor countries to accept strict safeguards against smuggling.
The deal represents a climbdown for Washington, which has single-handedly blocked an agreement at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Geneva headquarters since December, demanding that the patent override be restricted to the poorest countries and for a limited list of diseases.
Diplomats said a deal on drugs was the bare minimum needed to prevent next month’s summit of trade ministers in Cancun turning into a rerun of the WTO’s disastrous Seattle meeting, which ended in chaos after African countries walked out.
Washington was under intense pressure to deliver a package on drugs for poor countries after concessions were promised at the WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001.
Aid agencies said America’s intransigence had forced the developing world to accept a flawed agreement that posed significant hurdles for countries hoping to import cheap drugs from abroad. Under current trade rules any country can override patents in its home market and authorise production of the generic equivalent. But global trade rules prevent generic manufacturers from exporting to countries that do not have a domestic drug industry.
Under the deal, exporting countries would have to issue a compulsory licence overriding foreign patents, something the agencies fear they may be reluctant to do. ”By continually demanding more restrictions, the US seems to be pushing for a watertight system so that no generic drugs ever get through to the patients in developing countries,” said Ellen t’Hoen of the volunteer doctors’ organisation Medecins sans Frontières. ”[This] will, over time, lead to the complete drying up of availability of generic sources and, inevitably, increased drug prices We need greater competition in the market.”
Under the agreement generics companies such as Cipla in India, which offers Aids drugs for less than $300 a year and forces the big companies to bring down their prices — would have no incentive to produce cheap copies. — Â