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At a meeting of the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on 13 February, WTO members adopted two reports that the Council Chair, Ambassador Pimchanok Pitfield of Thailand, had developed to complete work in Geneva as much as possible before ministers gather in Abu Dhabi on 26-29 February for the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference

The reports address two issues the Council has been discussing since the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022: whether to extend the Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement (WT/L/1141) to COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics, and the Council's current and future work under paragraphs 23-24 of the Ministerial Declaration on the WTO Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Preparedness for Future Pandemics (WT/L/1142).(MC13).

This Policy Brief discusses issues concerning trade, intellectual property, and technology transfer that are most relevant for consideration at the 13^th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC13) in February 2024 and inclusion in its outcomes.

The following recommendations are proposed:

This Policy Brief discusses issues concerning trade, intellectual property, and technology transfer that are most relevant for consideration at the 13th ^World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC13) in February 2024 and inclusion in its outcomes.

The following recommendations are proposed:

Evergreening patents on medical products – extending the lifespan of patents that are about to expire – is an “abuse of the intellectual property system”, an HIV activist told the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Fair Pricing Forum on Thursday.

Meanwhile, an industry representative laid out her company’s value-based, country-specific approach to improving access to medicines, providing an example of how it had improved access to cancer medicine in Nigeria.

Ukraine-based Sergiy Kondratyuk, who works for the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, said that evergreening is pervasive and a barrier to lower medicine prices.

“In Thailand, about 70-80% of drug patents are evergreened … and approximately 45% were evergreened Ukraine,” said Kondratyuk.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have an opportunity at the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in February 2024 to grant an extension to the much-embattled Waiver to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The Waiver, proposed more than three years ago, was intended to allow countries and their pharmaceutical firms to manufacture and distribute generic versions of COVID-19 products to their populations more freely.

Recently, the international community quietly passed by the 22nd anniversary of the conclusion of the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health in November 2023. The Doha Declaration, originally adopted at the insistence of the Africa Group, was a landmark moment in international cooperation in which the members of the WTO agreed (in principle) that public health should not be undermined by a narrow reading of global rules governing intellectual property (IP).

Corporate Greed and Rich Countries’ Cowardice Lead WTO to Abandon  Proposed Sharing of COVID Treatment Technologies

For Immediate  Release: Jan. 30, 2024  

Contact: Emily Leach, mailto:eleach@citizen.org 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, news broke that the World Trade  Organization (WTO) is preparing to reject a proposal that would have  relaxed pharmaceutical monopolies and supported global sharing of  COVID-19 therapeutic and diagnostic technologies. 

In response, Global Trade Watch director Melinda St. Louis issued the  following statement: 

Developed countries have managed to push the TRIPS waiver talks over the precipice.

After an arduous push uphill since the time developing countries led by South Africa and India, first brought the proposal to the WTO in October 2020, the “waiver” talks will soon be concluded, failing to reach consensus among members. (The original proposal had sought a time-bound temporary waiver of certain IP rules boost production of COVID-19 medical products.)

In its wake, however, the long-running “Waiver” discussions have revitalized, and brought under the scanner the relationship between intellectual property and public health. It has also entrenched further, the turf wars in the policy spheres of health and trade.

By Nirmalya Syam and Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, PhD

The Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) allows WTO Members to agree to temporarily waive obligations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement). However, the TRIPS Decision adopted by the 12th ^WTO Ministerial Conference in June 2022, after lengthy and protracted negotiations lasting for 20 months in the middle of a pandemic, allowed only a fragment of the waiver proposal submitted by India and South Africa. Moreover, since the adoption of the Decision there has been an impasse in the WTO about extending the Decision to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics even though the WTO Members were mandated by the Decision to decide on this matter within six months of the Decision. This research paper analyzes the current state of play and concludes that there is a need to immediately and unconditionally extend the Decision to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. Moreover, the paper suggests options for how the TRIPS flexibilities can be optimally utilized in a pandemic situation without developing countries being resigned to the vagaries of negotiations on a waiver which is supposed to be an

The GC meeting, which continued on 14 December, appears to have cast a dark shadow on issues like the extension of the MC12 Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement to cover COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics; the proposed termination of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions; the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) graduation issue concerning transition support measures in favour of those LDCs that have graduated from the LDC category; and several other issues, said people who asked not to be quoted.