EU will take steps to resolve drug seizure cases, says Commissioner Ashton

The European Union has assured India that it will take steps to resolve the issue related to the recent cases of life-saving generic or off-patent medicines exported from India to other countries being seized at European ports, reports The Economic Times of India. EU trade commissioner Catherine Ashton, who is taking the post over from the UK's Peter Mandelson and who participated in the World Trade Organization informal ministerial in New Delhi. She also had a bilateral discussion with Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, and has said that she was aware of the problem and will try to resolve it.

In an interaction with the media on September 5, Ms Ashton said that the EU was very aware of the issue and was looking at possible solutions. When asked whether it was open to making changes in the European Commission's customs regulations, Ms Ashton said that nothing was yet decided. 'We know that we have a problem and it has to be resolved. Whether we do it by improving practice (at the customs level) or the process, has yet to be looked at,' she said.

This year, there have been two instances of Dutch customs authorities confiscating consignments of anti-HIV and anti-malaria drugs being shipped from India to Nigeria and Brazil respectively. The Dutch government claimed that it had no option but to carry out the seizures following complaints made by European pharmaceutical companies as the European customs laws warranted that. The European pharma companies making the complaints held European patents for the drugs that are off-patent in India.