UPDATE: China approves WTO drug access amendment

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in China has adopted a proposal to amend the World Trade Organization's intellectual property rights framework. The five-day session in Beijing discussed a proposal, approved in some countries such as Canada (Marketletter October 8), which is intended to mostly benefit poor countries that lack the manufacturing capacity to supply sufficient quantities of certain pharmaceutical products for the domestic market.

Pascal Lamy, the WTO's Director General, described the amendment as evidence of the willingness of the international body's members to ensure that the trading system benefits humanitarian and development aims.

Ma Xiuhong, China's Vice Minister of Commerce, said: "the amendment will play a positive role in balancing relations between intellectual property rights protection and public health promotion, helping developing and least-developed members to deal with public health problems as well." According to the Xinhua news agency, the production or importation of generic copies of patented drugs would be facilitated by the amendment to the Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property rights (TRIPs).