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US Says WTO
Deal Must Safeguard Drug Manufacturers
By REUTERS
NY Times, November
21, 2002
WASHINGTON
-A top U.S. official said on Thursday any agreement to guarantee poor
countries access to life-saving drugs must also contain ``safeguards'' to
protect large pharmaceutical companies.
As
World Trade Organization members strive for consensus on the issue, ``one
rule we should all follow ... is to make sure we are doing nothing to
undercut the incentive for pharmaceutical companies worldwide to focus on
solving these diseases,'' U.S. Commerce Undersecretary Grant Aldonas said.
Last
year, in an action that helped launch a new round of world trade talks,
WTO members agreed they had the flexibility under international trade
rules to license domestic manufacturers to make cheap versions of patented
drugs in response to emergencies or a public health crisis such as
HIV/AIDS.
Aldonas
told reporters the United States would resist efforts to go beyond the
kind of public health crises that WTO agreed last year in Doha, Qatar,
should be addressed.
``In
addition to that, I think you have to include safeguards against the
potential abuse of the process'' so that drug companies will continue to
have the profit incentive to develop new life-saving drugs, Aldonas said.
``The
companies are on board with trying to be helpful, but they need the
safeguards so they can stay in the market and continue to be helpful,'' he
said.
Last
year's agreement left unresolved how to ensure poor countries that do not
have a pharmaceutical industry would have access to generic life-saving
drugs.
The
issue has pitted drug companies in the United States and Europe that spend
heavily on research and development against generic drug manufacturers in
Brazil and India.
The
United States has proposed allowing poor countries to license companies in
another developing country to manufacture generic drugs, subject to
certain restrictions.
WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi has said countries must reach
an agreement on the issue by an end-of-the-year deadline to keep the
overall WTO negotiations on track to their scheduled conclusion by
December 2004.
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