Essential Medicines News

The editorial discusses Novartis’ suit against the Indian government, challenging Indian patent law, and the U.S. pressure on Thailand not to grant a compulsory license for the AIDS drug efavirenz.

Two international campaigns are currently defending the legal rights of the world’s poorest people to access the essential medicines they need. Both campaigns are calling for the rules of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), a binding World Trade Organisation agreement, to be upheld and are targeting the pharmaceutical industry and the US Government. …

Both these cases take international law into unchartered territory. If Novartis and the US Government (and Merck) get their way, this will have grave implications for the rights of poorer countries to protect public health, which TRIPS flexibilities are supposed to protect. It will also be a further blow to the authority of the World Trade Organisation which is already drastically undermined by the repeated failure of the Doha round of trade talks where the imbalance of power allows some countries to put their own interests before the rules of international trade agreements.