Run research on impact of patent waiver on drugs

Bangladesh should carry out studies in advance to assess the likely impact of the end of waiver on making patented drugs once the country graduates from least-developed country bracket, said an expert.

Due to being an LDC, the country does not have to comply with the World Trade Organisation's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement until 2033.

“If Bangladesh comes out of the LDC category, the government will have to revise its patent law and if you make your patents stronger, medicine prices will increase,” said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a professor of international affairs at The New School in New York.

She went on to cite India as an example, where the pharmaceutical prices shot up once the country graduated from the LDC bracket and patent law needed to be revised.

Fukuda-Parr's comments came in an interview with The Daily Star on the sidelines of the third CPD anniversary lecture, an event she attended in Dhaka last week.

“When revising the patent law, you will have to make sure that you do not inadvertently make it more stringent than it needs to be,” she said, adding that some countries have inadvertently put conditions that are unnecessarily strong.

Patent law should be changed in a way that monopoly does not last for too long, said Fukuda-Parr, also the vice-chair of the UN Committee on Development Policy.

She warned the government about singing any new bilateral or regional trade deals as they can include intellectual patent rights provisions that are tougher than that of the TRIPS agreement.

“Most people think that trade agreements do not have anything to do with health. So, trade ministers negotiate trade agreements on the basis of what will happen to import and exports and whether there will be some advantages in terms of market access.”

But trade deals have consequences on medicine prices, access to medicine and on healthcare, said Fukuda-Parr, who previously worked for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.