PHA-Exch> Canada takes unprecedented step to export generic HIV/AIDS drugs

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Vern Weitzel vern at coombs.anu.edu.au
 "[health-vn discussion group]" health-vn at cairo.anu.edu.au


http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/419761

Canada, in world first, to export AIDS drugs to Rwanda
Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 07:00 EDT

MONTREAL — Canada has become the first country to notify the World Trade
Organization that it has agreed to allow a Canadian company to make generic
medicines for export.

"The WTO received from Canada, on 4 October 2007, the first notification
from
any government that it has authorized a company to make a generic version of
a
patented medicine for export under special WTO provisions agreed in 2003,"
the
WTO said in a statement.

The triple combination AIDS therapy drug TriAvir will now be made in Canada
by
the Canadian company Apotex and exported to Rwanda.
Earlier this year, Rwanda informed the WTO that it intended to import some
260,000 boxes of the drug from Canada over the next two years.
"Canada's notification completes the circle. Both notifications were
required
for the medicine to be exported to Rwanda under an important agreement among
WTO
members reached on 30 August 2003," the WTO said.
Under the terms of the WTO accord, a country can issue a "compulsory
license" to
a national company allowing it to reproduce a patented medicines for export
to
meet emergency needs such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

(AFP)
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