PHA-Exchange> Generic drugs access agreement failure?

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NO CHANGE IN WTO GENERIC DRUG ACCESS AGREEMENT TALKS, PHARMACEUTICAL
INDUSTRY SAYS

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 Pharmaceutical industry officials on Thursday said that talks over
access to generic drugs, including antiretrovirals, are "deadlocked,"
despite optimism from officials at the World Trade Organization,
Reuters reports (Waddington, Reuters, 5/22).  The talks have been
stalled since members missed a Dec. 31, 2002, deadline to reach an
agreement. U.S. negotiators in February refused to sign a deal under
the Doha declaration to allow developing nations to override patent
protections to produce generic versions of drugs to combat public
health epidemics such as AIDS unless wording was included to specify
which diseases constitute a public health epidemic. The United States
said that without such a list, developing nations could use patent
overrides to produce generic versions of any patented drug -- such as
Viagra -- that is not used to fight public health epidemics (Kaiser
Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 4/2).  Harvey Bale, president of the
International Federation of  Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations,
said that there had been no change in positions since the breakdown of
the
talks.  Supachai Panitchpakdi, director-general of the WTO, and other
trade officials have called for a resolution to the problem before the
September meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico.  The drug compromise is
seen as a "make or break" opportunity to boost the world economy with
the Doha declaration, according to Reuters (Reuters, 5/22).

World Health Assembly Meets in Switzerland

The 56th Session of the World Health Organization's World Health
Assembly convened last week in Geneva, Switzerland, the Banjul
Independent/AllAfrica.com reports (Bojang, Banjul
Independent/AllAfrica.com, 5/23).  In advance of the assembly's
discussion of international property rights, Medecins Sans Frontieres
on Thursday released a report, titled "Drug Patents Under the
Spotlight" (MSF release, 5/22).  The report found that resource-poor
countries that do not have the
capacity to accurately assess medical patent applications are granting
more patents than necessary, driving up the price of treatments and
preventing research on alternatives.  For example, many West African
countries gave approval to GlaxoSmithKline's antiretroviral treatment
Combivir within a couple years of its 1997 application, while the
European Union is still investigating the application (Koppel,
Associated Press, 5/22).  In addition, the AIDS advocacy and human
rights group HealthGAP on Wednesday published in a press release an
allegedly leaked draft of a U.S. resolution regarding medical
intellectual property rights.  The draft resolution urges member states
to promote the development of new preventative and
therapeutic medications through strong patent and data protection and
the implementation of tax incentives and patent extenstions on existing
drugs for research on medicines for diseases affecting developing
countries.  HealthGAP's Brook Baker said that the resolution shows that
the United States has "respond[ed] to the pharmaceutical industry's
insatiable drive
for profits" and is attempting to use the WHA "to champion monopoly
protections on life-saving drugs," which will "condemn millions of
people living with HIV/AIDS and other diseases of poverty to
unnecessary suffering and death" (HealthGAP release/AllAfrica.com,
5/21).