[NYTr] AIDS/ Big Pharma/ Corruption in Kenya

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Riaz K. Tayob - activ-l

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=759&res=1024_ff&print=0

28 September 2007 

Kenya Probes Official Link Into Bid To Strip 
Government of Compulsory Licensing

By Paul Garwood 

Kenyan authorities are probing who in government may  have been
compromised by the pharmaceutical industry to try strip the African
country of its right to produce medicines without patent-holder
approval, a senior official said Friday.

Ahmed Ogwell, head of international health relations at Kenyas Health 
Ministry, said the Attorney-Generals office is investigating who in the 
same office had, possibly, been repeatedly putting forward a proposed 
amendment to the Industrial Property Act, which has been defeated in 
parliament three times, most recently on 12 September (IPW, Public 
Health, 14 September 2007).

Someone has been compromised in the system and tried to bring 
amendments that are pro-industry, Ogwell told Intellectual Property 
Watch. It (the proposed amendment) offered nothing for Kenya. The only 
ones who benefit would be industry.

There have been repeated efforts to delete parts of Section 80 of the 
Industrial Property Act, which was enacted in 2001. It enabled the 
government to issue compulsory licenses to local manufacturers to 
produce generic versions of pharmaceuticals, such as antiretrovirals
for HIV/AIDS patients, without seeking approval from the drug company
that holds the patent rights.

Governments can issue compulsory licenses to produce medicines more 
cheaply than prices offered by drug companies without seeking patent 
holder consent under the World Trade Organization Agreement on 
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). TRIPS 
allows countries, particularly in the developing world, to make drugs
to safeguard public health in national emergencies or for
non-commercial purposes.

The first attempt to amend Section 80 was made by the state-run Kenya 
Industrial Property Institute, apparently because the provision offered 
no compensation to pharmaceutical firms for the copying of their 
products, lawyers have said. But no one has claimed responsibility for 
putting forward the latest attempt to amend the laws, including the 
health and trade ministries.

Ogwell suggested that officials within the Kenya Attorney Generals 
office may have been behind the most recent draft amendment, as that 
office was the source of all draft legislation produced to go before 
parliamentary debate.

Hopefully we can isolate who this particular group of people are, 
Ogwell said. It is a very sensitive process. There is an investigation 
taking place through the Attorney Generals office into who within their 
office is actually behind this.

While saying he was unclear who in government was involved, Ogwell was 
categorical that someone within the pharmaceutical industry had a hand 
in the affair.

I have no doubts in my mind who is promoting this. Who is going to 
benefit? For me it is very clear, one way or another, that industry is 
involved in this. I do not know what the motivations (of the officials) 
are but it is clear that industry somehow would be the only ones
opposed to the legislation.

A spokesman for the Geneva-based International Federation of 
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, which represents 
drug-makers, rejected the notion that one of its members would have 
influenced Kenyan officials to try scrap the legislation.

Very few of our members patent any kind of medicine whatsoever in 
Kenya, therefore they have no interest to promote such an amendment, 
Guy Willis said.

Ratifying the amendment would have resulted in the government 
relinquishing its power to issue compulsory licenses to local 
manufacturers to produce drugs for public health emergencies. It, in 
turn, would have compelled authorities to negotiate directly with the 
big pharmaceutical firms that hold the patents to obtain medicines.

In Kenya, between 270,000 and 300,000 people living with HIV need 
treatment, of which some 150,000 receive antiretroviral therapy, 
access-to-medicine campaigners have said. Most medicines are generic 
versions of patented medicines and are obtained through parallel 
importation, mainly from India, which is a prime source of low cost, 
high quality pharmaceuticals.

Kenya has never issued a compulsory license, but came close in 2004 
before German pharmaceutical major Boehringer Ingelheim agreed to enter 
into a voluntary license agreement with Kenyan drug firm Cosmos to 
produce generic versions of its patented anti-AIDS drug nevirapine.

Paul Garwood may be reached at info at ip-watch.ch.