Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Wednesday November 14, 2001
Rawhi Abeidoh

The agreement was formally approved by trade ministers of the 142-nation WTO after six days of gruelling negotiations at a conference in Qatar.

It means that a country suffering devastating pandemics like AIDS and malaria will be able to skirt WTO rules on pharmaceutical patents to produce or buy generic drugs.

"This is a very important achievement for the developing countries, especially for the Sub-Sahara African countries," Nacer Benjelloun-Touimi, Morocco's WTO negotiator, said.

The deal gives the world's 48 least-developed countries a 15-year grace period to implement WTO rules on drug patents, and allows them the right to seek further extensions after that.

The issue of patent rules -- set out in the WTO's TRIPS intellectual property agreement -- has been one of the hottest issues in the WTO.

Rich nations, led by the United States and Canada with support from Switzerland, Japan and some European Union countries, had sought stronger commitments from developing countries to implement TRIPS rules in order to protect the $300 billion-a-year industry.

"Generally, it is acceptable, although we would have preferred a more focused package," said Robin Tickle, spokesman for economy minister Pascal Couchepin of Switzerland, which is home to some of the world's biggest drug firms.

"The agreement serves the dual goal of meeting the interests of the developing countries and protecting patents of Swiss companies," Tickle told Reuters.

AIDS A KEY ISSUE

The declaration said: "We recognise the gravity of the public health problems afflicting many developing and least developed countries, especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, tubercolosis, malaria and other epidemics."

It added that while WTO countries reiterated their commitment to the TRIPS accord, members have the right to "protect public health, and in particular, to promote access to medicines by all".

Poor countries and Western campaigners backing them had accused rich nations, and the big pharma-firms, of putting profits before health.

The United States, Canada and Switzerland -- and the companies themselves -- insisted that patent protection was vital to ensure the revenue that is used to finance research on new medicines.

But popular opinion around the world was roused against the companies by an effort they launched two years ago to stop South Africa changing its law to allow purchase of generics.

Also influential was a novel, "The Constant Gardener", by best-selling British writer John Lecarre which portrayed pharmaceutical manufacturers as using poor Africans as guinea pigs for new drugs, and worse.

Amid an international outcry, the pharma-firms dropped the South African case early this year.

On Wednesday seven campaigning groups -- including the Brussels-based Medecins sans Frontieres, British-based Oxfam, Third World Network of Malaysia which is normally a fierce critic of the WTO, and the London-headquartered Consumers'

International, issued a joint statement hailing the declaration.

LETHAL EFFECTS OF TRIPS

It said the document showed that WTO members recognised the "lethal side-effects" of the TRIPS agreement and had given teeth "to the measures that countries can use to counteract them..."

"Now, if drug companies price drugs beyond the reach of people who need them, governments can override patents without the threat of retribition," they said in a joint statement.

Poor nations have long complained that they cannot afford the costly drugs needed to treat millions suffering from diseases such as AIDS, and must have the ability to make or import cheap generic versions without fear of litigation from drug companies or by their home governments through the WTO.

The firms themselves also in the end reconciled themselves to the terms of the declaration, which initially they said would open the way to wholesale piracy of drugs and medicines.

"It is a balanced package," Harvey Bale, secretary-general of the Geneva-based International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, said.

"There is something in it for...all WTO countries, but there is not much for research and industry," he said.

Critics say the case for pharmaceutical company rights was undermined by recent U.S. and Canadian threats to override patents on Cipro, a drug made by Bayer AG and a cure for anthrax -- a virus being mysteriously spread by post in the United States.

The United States last year took Brazil to the WTO's dispute settlement system over a move to establish the right under domestic law to compel the pharma-firms to licence local companies to produce cheap versions of patented drugs.

But under a storm of criticism from U.S. and other AIDS campaigners, Washington pulled back and withdrew the case.

"It made the U.S. feel what it is like being confronted with a shortage of drugs for life-threatening diseases," Ellen Hoen of Medicins Sans Frontieres, one of the seven health groups that signed the statement in Doha.

Hoen said the developing nations came to the WTO conference "extremely well prepared and with a very clear agenda.

"They really worked as a block," she added.

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