WTO: TRIPS agreement

•Minimum universal standards for copyrights, patents and trade marks

•20 year patent protection for medicines

•Criteria: Novelty, Inventiveness and Usefulness

2001: Cut the Cost

Affirmed countries’ right to interpret TRIPS

- to “protect public health”

- “promote access to medicines”

- use public health safeguards

WTO: Doha Declaration

4 million more people infected with HIV in 2005

75% of adults and 90% children in need of HIV treatment go without

30% of world’s population still does not have access to essential medicines

Cancer rates will double by 2020 with 60% in developing countries

Diabetes has increased from 30 million to 230 million in last 20 years in developing countries

5 years later…

Five years after Doha, people living in poverty in developing countries continue to suffer and die because medicines are either not available or are priced out of reach.

Northern governments and pharma companies must act now to make life-saving medicines affordable for all.

Oxfam: Access to Medicines

Shared responsibility between Governments and Pharmaceutical Industry

Essential services

Intellectual property rights

Individual companies – Novartis in India

Access to Medicines

Patents – A Social Contract

-Society grants Intellectual Property Rights

Pharmaceutical Industry provides society with Innovative and Accessible medicines

Current Problems

India Driven by market returns not public health needs e.g. Viagra

Expensive research

Lack of true innovation e.g. Me-Too

Neglected diseases, groups & therapies

Novartis in India

• India – the pharmacy of the developing world

• 1995 India joins WTO

• 2005 New Patent Law in line with TRIPS

Novartis in India

• 1998 Glivec patent application• 2003 Glivec Exclusive Marketing Rights • 2005 Patent denied – not real innovation 3(d)• Novartis appeal and filed case against 3(d)• Attack on the Doha Declaration• Access to medicines under threat world wide

Take action

E-action to Novartiswww.maketradefair.com

E-mail your pension fundwww.oxfam.org.uk/a2m

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