Conference on TRIPS flexibilities in IP Legislation and lessons learnt

[Geoffrey Ngwira]

Dear Colleagues,

I just would like to inform everyone that I am attending a national conference on the implementation of TRIPS flexibilities in national Intellectual Property Rights legislation for strengthening access to medicines in Malawi. The conference, which is facilitated by SARPAM and attended by participants from different sectors, highlights the importance of inter-sectoral collaboration at dealing with issues that eventually impact on access to medicines. The participants are from Ministries of Health, Justice, and Trade and Industry; also from Science and Technology Department, civil society organisations, Academia (universities), public procurement authority, medicines regulatory authority, Customs Department, Central Medical Stores, Law Society, pharmaceutical manufacturers and development partners. This is a wide ranging group.

The interest from non-health oriented participants like lawyers in issues of access to medicines is striking. Some who thought that health issues were not their concern came to realise that their work has far reaching consequences if they do not collaborate with their counterparts in other sectors like health, pharmaceutical manufacturing or civil society. At the end of the workshop, we expect to see a working group formed, which goes beyond lawyers to include health workers, to look at reviewing and amending Intellectual Property legislation.

 

The words that kept coming in a discussion were COLLABORATION and HARMONISATION. Different departments are used to working in isolation trying to come up with policies or amending laws and guidelines with only their interests in mind, only to realize that it is necessary to involve other stakeholders to come up with policies, laws and guidelines that would favour all. In our case, legal experts that were working on patent laws needed to be alert towards TRIPS flexibilities offered to least developed countries (LDCs) that could facilitate procurement or local/regional manufacturing of generic versions of otherwise patented lifesaving medicines like ARVs, Anti-TB and Anti-cancer medicines.

 

Drawing parallels to regional pooled procurement, some procedures need to be harmonised among national medicines procurement agencies to foster inter-country collaboration at information and work sharing. Harmonisation of procedure can help reduce gaps in the information that countries submit for uploading to the information sharing e-platform, thereby making fully complete information for each product available for others to use to improve their procurement processes.

 

Working in isolation without communicating or collaborating with others may provide a false sense of successful procurement processes until you look at how others have performed on similar products. Then you will realise that on some products you could have had a better negotiation position if you had seen information from your counterpart procurement units in other countries.

 

Let us think about procedures we use in our procurement processes that can be harmonised across countries without the need to amend procurement laws but can help us record all the necessary information for sharing on the e-platform. Please visit the e-platform at http://sadc.meddb.medicinesinfohub.net/ and reference your prices during your next procurement. At this stage where procedures are not harmonised, you will notice gaps in some of the information.

 

Regards

 

Geoffrey Ngwira

Regional PP Advisor

SARPAM