Canada issues compulsory licence for HIV/AIDS drug export to Rwanda, in first test of WTO procedure

Source: BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest

Rwanda last week came one step closer to becoming the first nation to use a WTO procedure designed to allow developing countries to import cut-price copies of patented medicines, when Canadian patent authorities issued a compulsory licence authorising the generic production of a patented HIV/AIDS drug for export to the central African country.

"This is big step forward in finally getting at least one affordable medicine from Canada to a developing country in need," said Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. However, noting that it had already been three years since Canada introduced a legal system for making such exports possible, he said "it's also a wake-up call" about the need to simplify the process to make it more efficient and effective.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) cleared large generic pharmaceutical company Apotex to manufacture and deliver 260,000 packs of Apo-Triavir at cost to Rwandan health authorities. This would be enough to treat 21,000 AIDS patients for a year.

Rwandan WTO delegate Edouard Bizumuremyi told Bridges he was delighted with the development and said Rwanda had been "waiting for this."

The authorisation follows Rwanda's July notification to the WTO that it wanted to import that quantity of the medicine from Canada (see BRIDGES Weekly, 25 July 2007), becoming the first country to try to import generics under a WTO procedure criticised as too complex to be effective. (...)

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