View: The survival of humanity vs good economics

Since the days of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations there has been this debate that the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) - primarily owned by big corporations - would contradict the rights of citizens to access medicines and other remedies, and the rights of farmers to save seeds and access other inputs at affordable cost. Activists from all over the globe were up in arms against the inclusion of IP as part of the trade negotiations. The hegemony of the developed world, especially the US and European powers along with Japan, could succeed in the conclusion of negotiation on the Agreement on the Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual property Rights (TRIPS), which became part of the agreements establishing the World Trade Organisation (WTO). However, the fight of activists and concerned citizens continued. Developing countries including India were given a 10-year period to switch over to product patent protection for pharmaceutical patents. India made amendments to the Indian Patent Act 1970 and made it effective from January 1, 2005. If we see the provisions of these amendments from the point of view of public health, the original amendments were very dangerous. However, thanks to the pressure from intellectuals, activists, and from political leaders cutting across party lines, certain concrete public health safeguards were placed in the Patents Act. Though Indian Patent Act could take care of the domestic pharmaceutical industry and public health interests in India, TRIPS per se was coming in the way of protection of public health at the global level. Developments in recent days remind us of a scenario when the South African government was sued by the MNCs for the public health-friendly provisions in their patent legislation. A peoples’ movement started in South Africa, spread globally, and pressured the pharmaceutical MNC to withdraw the case. At that point, when WTO’s ministerial meeting was held at Doha, developed countries conceded to demand from developing countries to adopt a political declaration reiterating the rights of WTO member countries to use the flexibilities in the TRIPS Agreement to address the concerns on access to medicines emanating from IP protection, especially patents. To quote from the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, “The Doha Declaration affirms that the TRIPS Agreement does not, and should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public health". It further states: “we affirm that the Agreement can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all”. Regarding compulsory license it states: “Each member has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted”. This Declaration also recognised the rights of a member State to “determine what constitutes a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency, it being understood that public health crises”. The adoption of the Doha Declaration witnessed granting of Compulsory Licenses by many developing countries. However, most of these compulsory licenses were granted for HIV/AIDS medicines. Developed countries and pharmaceutical MNCs continue to exert pressure on developing countries including India. There can’t be a bigger national emergency than the present one. A country needs a range of medical products in its fight against Covid-19 therefore granting of Compulsory Licence policy upon one product or two is not sufficient to ensure an effective response to COVID19. Under these circumstances, in October 2020, India and South Africa made a formal submission to the WTO, seeking a waiver on certain provisions of the international agreements that regulate intellectual property rights to speed up efforts to prevent, treat and contain the Covid-19 pandemic. The waiver proposal seeks the waiver from certain TRIPS provisions related to the protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights to facilitate the availability of affordable medical products for the effective prevention, containment, and treatment of Covid-19. On behalf of Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the author wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcoming India’s waiver proposal. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has also sought support for this proposal from WTO, while speaking at an event organised by the Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The proposal currently enjoying the support of nearly 100 WTO member states, is blocked by a handful of developed countries. There is no doubt that this move of the waiver on certain provisions of the agreement is expected to help more countries, especially middle- and low-income nations to access vaccines and other essential medicines. Looking at the likely positive effect of such a move on humanity, a group of lawmakers in the US have also urged President Joe Biden to support the waiver proposal. Nearly 300 members of the European Parliamentarians urged the European Commission to support the waiver proposal. Recently, 100 Nobel laureates and former heads of states, including former prime minister of the UK, Gordon Brown, requested the US president to support the waiver proposal. Some parliamentarians have even accused the UK government of playing to the tunes of pharma companies.Recently, the US administration decided to halt the supply of raw materials needed for India's vaccine production - which is being considered the only safety net from worst infection - and prohibited the export of 40 million doses of vaccine lying unused with it, to India and other countries The decision was under fire from parliamentarians, media and others, throughout the world, including in the United States. Significantly, the Biden administration of the US had earlier decided that under 'America First’ policy of the US it will not send vaccine raw materials and vaccines to India. Though, the US has now lifted the embargo on raw material for the vaccine, the important takeaway from the episode is that we cannot depend on other countries for essential materials, may it be anything. The prevailing pandemic situation in the world has taught us a big lesson that the survival of humanity is much more important than economics. Therefore, it’s time to protect the health of people all around the world and prioritise patentee and trade secret protection below peoples’ lives. Though, efforts of the government at trade diplomacy level are commendable, it would be appropriate at this time that the government of India takes the following steps to ensure access and availability of the medicines and vaccines required urgently in our fight against Covid-19.• Allow more generic companies to produce Remdesivir under the government use license (Section 100) of the Indian Patents Act with a price ceiling.• Issue as many government-use licenses to produce Tocilizumab and Sarilumab and other critical medicines required to save the life of Covid-19 patients suffering from cytokine storm.The author is a Professor, PGDAV College and National co-convener Swadeshi Jagran Manch

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3u9tmyT