AEGiS-WSJ: Canada Moves to Implement WTO Pact on Generic Drugs

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Canada Moves to Implement WTO Pact on Generic Drugs

Wall Street Journal - November 7, 2003
Elena Cherney, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

The Canadian government introduced legislation to implement a landmark World Trade Organization agreement aimed at improving poor countries' access to generic versions of patented medications.

The proposed amendment to Canada's patent law would allow generic-drug makers to produce lower-cost medicines for export to poor countries while the medicines remain under patent in Canada. The bill includes a list of 46 patented drugs the World Health Organization considers "essential medicines," but Canadian government officials said they expect the list to expand as countries start requesting the medicines they need.

"This legislation is a major breakthrough in the international community's ability to respond" to global public-health needs, said Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham. Since the current session of the House of Commons is expected to end this week, the legislation probably will have to be reintroduced early next year.

Activist groups including Doctors Without Borders and South Africa's AIDS Law Project have been lobbying Canadian politicians to make Canada the first of the Group of Seven industrial countries to implement the WTO agreement on generic medicines, which allows poor countries to import and produce generic versions of patented drugs.

But pharmaceutical-industry officials said that even if the Canadian bill passes in the next few months, it could still take years for lower-cost Canadian versions of some of the most sorely needed drugs, such as antiretroviral HIV therapies, to reach patients in Africa. Since those patents are still protected for years, generic suppliers haven't yet started developing the drugs, said Jim Keon, president of the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association, in Toronto. Canadian brand-name-drug companies "are supportive of the objectives" of the legislation, said a spokesman for Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies, an Ottawa industry group.

Write to Elena Cherney at elena.cherney@wsj.com
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