Introduction

In high-income countries a market-driven pharmaceutical industry does not always sufficiently respond to the needs of particular patient groups, such as women and children. In addition, across the world, it excludes those population groups who represent commercially non-viable medical needs, despite the fact that their illnesses account for a significantly large proportion of the global health burden.
The commercial power and influence of the pharmaceutical industry in national and global healthcare policy has thrown up a visible divide between trade competitiveness and public health. Increasingly public health appears to be sacrificed in the race between regions for trade superiority. Health care systems are under enormous strain, and costs continue to spiral, without clear signs of benefits for the public. Yet it is the public that pays for innovation in health through a number of mechanisms such as taxes, corporate tax breaks and credits, health insurance schemes, and through legal frameworks such as patents.

As need-driven health research is becoming increasingly important: WHO is developing a global strategy and plan of action, and HAI members all over the world are actively working on a future scenario: Where the market fails, new approaches to pharmaceutical R&D are called for.

31 March 2009 Publication - Advanced Market Commitments: Current Realities and Alternate Approaches by Professor Donald W. Light, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, USA. Published by Health Action International and Medico International. See press release

15 April 2009 - HAI Response to the Expert Working Group on Alternative Financing

EU-CAN Alliance on Access to Medicines

HAI Europe and HAI Latin America have formed an alliance between European and Latin American civil society to monitor and lobby negotiations on Association Agreements between the EU and the countries of the Andean region. Rigid Intellectual Property Rights provisions demanded by the EU are likely to have a negative effect on Access to Essential Medicines.

HAI Europe coordinates civil society efforts in Europe and raises awareness at the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council about the potentially harmful impact of the Association Agreements on public health in the Andean countries.

HAI Latin America will bring together civil society organisations in the region, lobby their respective national governments and provide the evidence base to support the HAI Europe advocacy campaign.

2 December 2008 Policy Brief - The EU-CAN Association Agreement, Access to Medicines in jeopardy!

February 2009 Factsheet - EU-CAN Association Agreements Negotiations – This factsheet was developed in cooperation with Evert Vermeer Stichting in the context of their European Union Coherence programme

9 February 2009 Open letter - EU-CAN Alliance to the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament on the negotiations round 9-13 February 2009 in Bogota. Plus, an Annex on the public health concerns with the intellectual propoerty chapter in the trade agreements.

March 2009 Publication - Health Protection in the European and Andean Association Agreement. by Xavier Seuba Hernandez also available in Spanish, Executive Summary and Conclusions

24 March 2009 - Highlights from the Peru and Colombia Impact Studies: EU Intellectual Property proposals presented during the negotiation rounds in Lima. See press release

23 April 2009 Open letter - EU-CAN Alliance to the European Council on the negotiations round 4-9 May 2009 in Brussels. Plus, Annex 1 on the public health concerns with the intellectual property chapter in the trade agreements and Annex 2 .

1 May 2009 Policy Brief - Protecting Access to Medicines in EU Trade Agreements: The Andean Region

16 June 2009 Press release - EU Commission pushes its trade agenda on Andean nations despite public health consequences

DUTCH SEIZURES OF GENERIC MEDICINES IN TRANSIT

The case of the losartan seizure, which became public in January 2009, was a clear demonstration of European enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights trumping access to medicines. HAI immediately responded to this news with a press release, highlighting the inconsistency between the EU’s uncompromising IP enforcement agenda and commitments made by EU Member States, including the Netherlands, to promote and protect public health in developing countries.

This was followed by a joint letter with the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue and a joint letter from HAI and Oxfam Novib to the Dutch Ministries Finance, Economic Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Health, which called on the authorities to assess and determine conclusively whether the present EU regulations and practices on border measures are consistent with policies for facilitating universal access to medicines.

HAI was also part the group of NGOs that sent letters to the WHO and WTO, demanding that the WHO “immediately undertake an assessment of the risks to public health programs presented by such seizures” and that the WTO examine whether EU “customs rules and provisions in trade agreements present risks to goods in transit, and undermine the commitments made in 2001 in the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health concerning access to medicines.”

HAI then issued a statement following, WTO Director-General, Pascal Lamy’s response to the NGO letter.

The news at the end of February about the seizure of a UNITAID/Clinton Foundation shipment of ARV medicines brought home the importance of tackling these interventions in the legitimate trade of generic medicines. HAI issued a joint press release with Oxfam International and Knowledge Ecology International to condemn this unacceptable seizure of HIV/AIDS medicine that threatened the treatment of HIV positive Nigerians.

Following the recent release of the UNITAID shipment, HAI issued a statement on 20 March 2009 welcoming the release of these life-saving medicines but urging the authorities to refrain from seizing generics by applying overambitious border measures and allowing IP enforcement measures to distort or corrupt the free movement of legitimate medicines in transit.

At the beginning of April 2009, HAI filed an official request with the Dutch government, under the Wet Openbaar Bestuur (the Dutch-equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act), to release all documents related to the recent seizures of generic medicines in transit (click here for the statement). On 7 May 2009, HAI received the Official Response to Freedom of Information request, which is also available in Dutch.

On 5 May 2009, a shipment of the antibiotic, Amoxicillin, manufactured in India and destined for the Republic of Vanuatu in the Pacific, was seized by customs officials while in transit through Frankfurt, Germany. Amoxicillin is an essential medicine used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections. Please see the joint press release from Health Action International (HAI), Oxfam International, BUKO-pharma, Medico International and Third World Network.
See Literature Review - Media


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