Financial constraints dash Africa’s hopes of producing affordable drugs
Amendment to WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (Trips) has been ratified to boost export of medical products to poor nations after getting approval from two-thirds of the organisation’s membership. FOTOSEARCH
African pharmaceuticals will not immediately benefit from the amendments to the World Trade Organisation’s intellectual property laws that recently came into force.
The WTO Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) restricted firms producing medicine under compulsory licences — without consent of the patent holder — to trading them within the country of manufacture.
