Expert View: Pharmaceutical IP exemption extended for Least Developed Countries: Increased efforts to secure sustainable access to treatment

On November 6, the World Trade Organization (WTO) finally agreed, after two weeks of negotiations with the United States, to extend a waiver to allow the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to avoid implementing intellectual property rights on pharmaceutical products.

The waiver, which exempts LDCs from being required to enforce sections of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), had been due to expire on January 1, 2016, but this sought-after extension has lengthened the waiver for LDCs until 2033. This comes as recognition of the fact that LDCs are disproportionately affected by high levels of infectious and non-infectious diseases yet lack the resources to purchase expensive patent-protected treatments.

TRIPS is a multinational treaty providing that patents must be “available for any inventions whether products or processes, in all fields of technology”. Prior to the implementation of TRIPS in 1994, many countries either did not provide patent protection, or provided only limited protection for pharmaceutical products. Since 1994 the LDCs have negotiated three waivers relevant to public health and medicine, and as part of this most recent extension ending in 2033 there has been granted wider rights as well as flexibility for further lengthening in the future. Despite the benefits of TRIPS for IP protection, for the poorest countries of the world, TRIPS would have implemented an impossible barrier to healthcare and therefore a transition period for LDCs was put in place.