Phramaceutical Industry
Dhaka to negotiate with WTO for waiver on patent protection till `25
Dhaka will engage in negotiation with World Trade Organization in Geneva on extending the current waiver up to 2025 from maintaining mandatory patent protection under the intellectual property rights criteria for pharmaceutical products, a senior trade official said.
The move has been taken to protect the thriving local pharmaceutical industry from international barriers, the official added.
As the current waiver on the IPR issues will expire on December 31 next year, commerce ministry has advised Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative to the WTO last week to push forward the issue with the multilateral trading organisation for an extension of 10 years from 2016.
In a letter, the ministry suggested Permanent Representative’s Office to negotiate the IPR issue in favour of all 49 least developed countries including Bangladesh and to make the appeal a stronger case as far as interests of all small economies are concerned, it was learned.
‘We have asked our PR office in Geneva to push through the IPR issue with the WTO’s TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) council and outlined strategy to unite all LDCs as a common cause for extension.,’ a senior commerce official told New Age on Tuesday.
He said the issue is as crucial as existence of the country’s pharmaceutical industry as they would be liable to get patent rights from large global pharmaceutical companies at huge cost in case the present waiver is not extended beyond 2015.
Presently, Bangladesh, along with 48 other LDCs, enjoys exemption from the provision of IPR until 2015.
The industry people said they would be barred to import pharmaceutical products or manufacture the products using the methods of reputed global pharmaceutical firms in case the WTO does not entertain the request for extension.
A group of representatives of large local pharmaceutical companies last week met commerce minister Tofail Ahmed and senior trade officials of commerce ministry to pursue the issue, sources said.
The trade officials said the push from all LDC members of WTO would make the case stronger as the socio-economic backwardness of LDCs, lack of their capacity in trade and climate change vulnerabilities are the likely factors to influence the WTO general council in granting extension on IPR.
Currently, the number of LDCs is 49. Out of the total, only 33, including 25 from Africa, are members of WTO.
In Bangladesh, the pharmaceutical sector is one of the fastest growing sectors. The total size of the pharmaceutical market in Bangladesh is estimated to be worth US$ 1.0 billion and is growing at a steady rate.
There are about 270 registered pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Bangladesh. The local pharmaceutical manufacturers cater to about 97 per cent of the internal demand. The pharmaceutical products are exported to some 70 countries in the world. The yearly export from the sector fetches about US$ 50 million.
-With New Age input
