UN urged over MNC-backed "pressure"

The Argentine pharmaceutical industry association, CILFA, has urgedUnited Nations agencies to identify mechanisms to restrain what it describes as unilateral pressure from powerful countries, heavily lobbied by multinational pharmaceutical interests, which attempt to force drug patents that go beyond the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property rights agreement.

Speaking at the WTO/World Health Organization workshop on differential pricing for essential drugs, held near Oslo, Norway, this month (Marketletter April 16), CILFA representative Fabiana Jorge said that "many countries have suffered and continue to suffer unfair pressures, instigated by multinational pharmaceutical companies, which undermine TRIPs' attempts to reach a balance between the interests of patent holders and the public health." Developing countries should be able to use the rights granted to them under TRIPs, including the use of compulsory licensing and transition periods, "without being the object of unfair pressure or threats to give them up," she said.

CILFA also told the meeting that domestic drug manufacturers respect legitimate intellectual property protection and recognize companies' rights to recover their investment in R&D. However, they also strongly object to patent holders' "continued abuses" of the intellectual property system, such as attempting to extend patent terms on older medicines inappropriately and other anticompetitive practices. "Patents should have the objective of stimulating new discoveries of drugs, not to prevent consumers from accessing drugs at lower prices," according to Ms Jorge.