Healthy Skepticism Library item: 136

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Publication type: news

Liberal's plan to get discount medicines to poor nations panned
Globe and Mail 2004 Nov 19

Full text:

The Liberal government’s much-touted plan to get discount medicine to poor nations is flawed and may never succeed in sending a significant amount of drugs overseas, critics and aid groups warn.

The charge comes just as Prime Minister Paul Martin heads for meetings next week in Africa — a continent in dire need of affordable medicine to treat health crises from AIDS to malaria to tuberculosis.

No drugs have yet been exported under the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa Act, which was first tabled in Parliament more than one year ago. It passed in mid-May and the Liberals touted the measure in pre-election ads.

Six months later, the law has not yet come into force because Ottawa is still hammering out supporting regulations.

Relief groups say they fear that drugs won’t start flowing even after the bill takes effect.

They say that generic-drug firms — which are supposed to play a key role in the process — have not embraced a proposal from Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders) to manufacture a handful of drugs the group wants to see copied and exported.

“I think [the government] should be ashamed that . . . we haven’t even managed to get a first agreement to produce drugs,” said Rachel Kiddell-Monroe, a MSF official who has worked with Ottawa on the law.

“If you asked me a few months ago, I would have said [exports would begin within] a year’s time, but if you ask me today, I am not sure they are ever going to be shipped.”

Generic-drug companies say they are frustrated by the law, which they say makes it costly and risky to copy and export drugs.

“It’s an uncertain, difficult, lengthy process for our companies to basically sell below cost or donate products they don’t even make [yet],” said Jeff Connell, spokesman for the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association. “It’s unclear how it’s all going to work out.”

The law is supposed to eliminate legal hurdles for generic-drug companies to make cheap copies of patented medicine for export. This follows a 2003 World Trade Organization agreement that said countries may breach drug patents to help poor nations tackle health crises.

Ian Jack, spokesman for Industry Minister David Emerson, says it’s not up to Ottawa to see that medicines are exported: It’s up to the private sector.

“We have created a framework that allows these drugs to be exported to countries in need. It’s now up to the companies and [non-governmental organizations] to use this process. At the end of the day the government doesn’t manufacture or sell these products,” he said.

Industry Canada official Éric Dagenais said the law will probably come into force early next year. He said the legislation is important — regardless of whether it leads to shipments — because it offers an alternative drug supplier when poor countries negotiate with patented-drug makers.

The generic industry says it fears Ottawa has made it too easy for patent-holding drug companies to sue generic companies in the case of a dispute over a future transaction.

Canada’s Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies, which represent brand names, say generics are just making excuses. “It seems the generics are spending a lot of energy on reasons why they can’t do this,” spokesman Jacques Lefebvre said. “As for being worried about lawsuits . . . if you respect the regulations that are in place, you shouldn’t worry about lawsuits.”

Two original backers of the legislation, Liberal cabinet minister Pierre Pettigrew and former industry minister Allan Rock, could not be reached for comment last night.

Ms. Kiddell-Monroe said Ottawa must make exporting drugs a higher priority.

“Countries like Canada are needed to fill this yawning gap for medicine.”