- 2 weeks ago
- #considerthis
For three decades, countries around the world have agreed not to use a controversial legal tool under the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). However, in a recent World Trade Organization meeting, WTO members failed to reach consensus on extending the moratorium, allowing it to expire for the first time since 1995. With the expiry of this moratorium, what are the potential consequences for Malaysia and similar countries? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Chee Yoke Ling, Executive Director, Third World Network.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:10hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day for three
00:19decades countries around the world have agreed not to use a controversial legal tool under the
00:26agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights or better known by its acronym
00:33the trips agreement however in a recent world trade organization meeting wto members failed to
00:40reach consensus on extending the moratorium allowing it to expire for the first time since 1995. now with
00:48the expiry of this moratorium are there immediate consequences for malaysia helping me think this
00:55through and joining on the show now is chi yukling chi yukling who is the executive director of third
01:01world network yukling thank you so much for being on the show with me today so before we get into
01:05the
01:05latest developments with the wto meeting maybe we can begin our conversation by you um briefly
01:10explaining to us what the trips agreement is and how it affects um specifically access to medicines
01:18thank you melissa a pleasure to be back on your program uh so very quickly this trips agreement as
01:24you you know it's a tongue twister so we call it trips which is also very tripping uh it's an
01:29agreement uh it's an international intellectual property agreement that was negotiated in the late 80s
01:36and entered into force uh in 1995 right so all the countries which are in the world trade organization
01:44or wto are members of this agreement including malaysia of course and this agreement basically uh was a very
01:52controversial agreement because it introduced for the first time in international law on intellectual property
01:59patents like medicines we know about uh copyright trademark uh you know industrial uh design so very broad
02:07you know all types of intellectual property so and but it is still nevertheless trying to balance between
02:13protecting the contributions of inventors and creators but also keeping public policy making of government
02:21development objectives access to medicines and public health access to knowledge so i can be able to
02:28photocopy a chapter of a very expensive law or you know medical book uh so it's a balance right it
02:34was not easy
02:34and from our perspective in the developing world it was a balance that really was not so much in favor
02:40of our
02:40our freedom to decide you know what kind of intellectual property system we want but nevertheless it's
02:46there uh and it's been in uh in in uh in force for for more than 30 years uh so
02:53but there is a very
02:54so how but but the the the interesting thing about trips is it leaves it to the national governments
02:59to implement the details so let's zero in on medicines right because medicines have patents and we know if
03:07there's a patent on the medicine there's only one supplier one manufacturer one importer and so you
03:12can then set whatever price you want and this has become something that we all are living with all
03:16over the world so um so it is important to be able to have a system where the way you
03:22give a patent and
03:23when you give a patent is going to be really a deserving case so the trips agreement says you give
03:29a
03:29patent when there is an invention dimension is new and getting to this new invention you had to take
03:36some inventive steps now what is an inventive step and what is new is up to your national law and
03:43that
03:43is why some medicines people ask why is it patented in malaysia but it's not patented in egypt or
03:50argentina or india not because they don't respect patents and intellectual property but they have
03:55stricter rules i'll give you a simple example i think two tablets no more patents right it's generic
04:01so we combine the two into one tablet easier to take for patients in malaysia and some other
04:08countries we give another 20 years because the minimum for each patent is 20 years monopoly in the
04:12market so we take two two two tablets put into one pick another 20 years many countries don't give that
04:21right now so coming to the to do what we are concerned about in what happened in cameroon in the
04:27ministerial conference in the trips agreement there is a provision that has been very problematic
04:32it says that even if a country exercises all its rights to implement to interpret so that it balances
04:40public health you know access to knowledge development of your in local industry against protection of
04:47intellectual property you can do all that but there is a funny provision that says even if you are
04:53not in breach or you haven't gone against any of the intellectual property trips requirement but
04:59nevertheless the patent holder for example has actually gotten less benefit because of your actions
05:09and they can actually take a case against a government for what we call non-violation complaint so having
05:17violated the truth agreement but there is this complaint called non-violation complaint based on
05:22the patent holder getting less benefit because of your national law and practice okay right so there
05:28was for 30 years this this moratorium on non-violation complaints okay yeah so basically they've been
05:35right so so within the agreement because some of the development countries who knew what all this was about
05:40back in the day most countries were not aware because we didn't have this kind of rules right
05:44they they built in a five-year moratorium within the strips agreement it would end in five years so
05:50that countries can get prepared and then it's not a free for all right so when you can do a
05:56complaint
05:56how the procedure they were supposed to work out the details of implementing that non-violation complaint
06:01right but they never did it but very soon countries woke up in the developing world that is not a
06:07good thing to do right
06:08so they have been renewing every year this uh you know since 1998 so every two years when the ministers
06:15meet they renew it and it was a temporary moratorium so yorlin there was that meeting the wto meeting where
06:21they couldn't agree couldn't reach consensus on extending the moratorium the moratorium has expired so
06:27what does that mean for malaysia and similar countries like us developing countries particularly
06:32why should um malaysians watching tonight care about the expiry of this moratorium this moratorium is
06:40to say that members members of wto will not uh allow their companies right to take action against another
06:46government for non-breach right so this is important and it labs and it has done it has actually happened
06:54before where there was no agreement at least twice in the ministerial conference of the wto but they couldn't
06:59agree at the ministerial conference but they went back to geneva because the general council of the wto is
07:04really the the the decision-making body all the members are there so they went back and they actually
07:10agreed on the moratorium right so so so we've had that experience so collapsing so-called in cameroon is
07:18not the end of the story but why is it important because if you don't have a moratorium you raise
07:24a lot of
07:24uncertainty every action i do will let be subject to a non-violation complaint by a company i'll give
07:31you an example one of the very important things for medicines and malaysia has done it twice we are
07:37allowed to if you cannot negotiate a more reasonable affordable price for medicine you can do what we
07:44call a compulsory license so without the consent of the patent holder but with really a good reason why
07:50you need it you can overcome the patent barrier and you allow a generic to come in from another company
07:57so the ministry of health has used it twice in 2003 to bring in generic hiv medicines and we brought
08:05the price down by about up to 80 percent compared to the originator and once the generic were in and
08:12it's only temporary it was only for two years or three years you know that kind of thing but the
08:17minute
08:17we had generics in the market the price of the originator companies who hold the patents they
08:23also dropped the price because now there's competition right and then in 2017 we didn't use
08:28it very often but we used it in 2017 we had hepatitis c with amazing drug that actually within 12
08:35weeks
08:36you can cure and you don't take it with another drug it's called surface bovil but it was so expensive
08:41there was a private uh patient in a hospital in penang who paid 400 000 ringgit for a 12-week
08:49treatment
08:50right so first bovil which is the the main drug you have to have with another one today because we
08:57issued a compulsory license in the ministry for public health they imported from egypt the surface bovil
09:02generic and we combine it with another non-patented drug we are rolling out for free at about under
09:102 000 ringgit 400 000 to under 2 000 ringgit for 12 weeks and you can cure this is this
09:17is really
09:18really important right the same with hiv so these two use of compulsory licensing which is allowed by
09:24trips allow us to roll out a free public treatment system for hiv and for hepatitis c in the ministry
09:32of
09:32health now in the non-violation complaint a company could say oh wait a minute because you use your
09:39allowed flexibility of a composite license you have caused me to lose a lot of profit my benefit
09:44because now you don't buy from me you buy from a generic they could technically take an action
09:50against malaysia to say you must compensate me well it is so expensive we won't be able to roll it
09:57out
09:57for free anyway so it's it's what is the real benefit they are losing right through the monopoly so so
10:03that
10:03there would definitely be even even if it does not happen there's this um uncertainty around whether or
10:09not a complaint can be filed against government makes you a bit worried right uh so talk to me
10:16yoklyn about what malaysia should be considering now what should malaysia be doing now to protect
10:21our policy space in this environment of uncertainty right so what we need to do is that uh because they
10:27didn't uh renew it this time the whole uh matter is has come back to geneva to the wto right
10:33uh and
10:34on the 23rd and 24th of april the trips council because the trips every agreement has its own
10:40committee or council that monitors implementation etc so what we must do is on the 23rd and 24th when
10:47this issue comes up for discussion now colombia has on the road to cameroon and at cameroon been the
10:54strongest proponent with a proposal on a permanent moratorium for certainty for all countries right
11:00in all the sectors not just medicines so in some countries were supporting it but in the midst of
11:05all the different fights over different issues this one actually was lost so malaysia in our opinion
11:11should support a permanent moratorium on non-violation complaints of the trips agreement
11:16and join other countries together and we can provide a lot of information about why it is important
11:21and we need to make the public aware which is why it's good you have this program because we need
11:26the public patients you know doctors and beyond the health sector to other sectors to support our
11:33government taking that good position so that's what Malaysia should do and then we could get the
11:38general council which meets in early may to pick this issue up and even if it's temporary we don't
11:44get a permanent there'll be the fight at least let's keep renewing it but really the long-term solution
11:48for predictability and certainty and public policy space is a permanent moratorium all right yorlin
11:55thank you so much for highlighting this really important issue for us tonight appreciate your time
12:00chi yorlin the executive director of third world network we're going to take a quick break here and
12:05consider this we'll be back with more on this topic so make sure you stay tuned
Comments