In the last issue of eBulletin, we reported as a news brief about “The Never Ending IP Tussle with the Generics”. That tussles have indeed not settling; in fact, there is every sign to show that they escalate further!

Following the Dutch customs seizure of the active substance losartan potassium (the API for Cozaar), leading international health advocates have piled pressures to the heads of the World Health Organization and World Trade Organization calling on them to act to prevent possible circumvention of international trade rules for intellectual property rights relating to shipments of legal generic drugs bound for developing countries. The letters were also sent to the heads of the World Customs Organization (WCO), World Intellectual Property Organization, WTO General Council and WTO Council for TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights).

The letters  to WHO & WTO assert that between October and December there were four shipments seized and held by the Netherlands as they were passing through the country. The issue is ripe to explode as generics exports are seen as vital to economies such as India’s, are critical to the survival of patients in developing and least-developed nations, and fears have been stoked that developed-nation pharmaceutical industries and governments are working to construct new ways to slow generics trade that competes with their brand-name markets.
India and Brazil maintained that under international rules, transit countries do not have the right to block goods passing through. They cited Article V of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which the letters quote as defining any territory that goods pass through as “in transit”, which the nongovernmental groups say are exempt from normal restrictions associated with patents or other intellectual property rights when in route to a legitimate market. Holland violated that notion when it seized generics from India heading to Latin American countries.

The issue of the seizures could come up at the March TRIPS Council meeting. It’s not very clear if this would be an agenda; but it’s very clear, however, that reaction to such “seizure” has not shown signs of abating. Obviously, the developing countries – where generic drugs are vital to ensure improved access to medications; are facing off with the developed countries, or more accurately the patent owners mostly located in the richer, more developed nations.

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