Access to medicines and intellectual property : Accès aux médicaments et la propriété intellectuelle : une réunion d'experts internationaux sur le Régime canadien d'accès aux médicaments, les développements dans le monde et les nouvelles stratégies pour améliorer l'accès

The agenda for the meeting and a list of participants are appended to this report of the deliberations, as is a list of background materials shared with participants in advance of the consultation. [...] Global concern about the impact of the TRIPS Agreement began to grow in the late 1990s, particularly with the passing of the South African Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendments Act and the subsequent litigation initiated by 39 multinational pharmaceutical companies aimed at blocking implementation of certain of its features. [...] As a result, it becomes even more important to ensure the ability of countries to make effective use of compulsory licensing in order to procure generics and put downward pressure overall on medicine prices — hence the importance of a “solution” to the “Doha paragraph 6” problem, such as the mechanism agreed in the 2003 WTO Decision. [...] However, the solution ultimately adopted in the 2003 WTO Decision, which takes the form of a waiver of obligations under Article 31(f), requires, depending on the applicable domestic patent law and the patent status of the product(s) in question, back-to-back issuing of compulsory licences by both the exporting and importing countries/Members. [...] MSF has huge concerns over India’s implementation of the TRIPS Agreement as of 2005, the effects of which are now playing out and will continue to play out in the months and years ahead: is the “pharmacy of the poor” closing up shop?.