Access to Affordable Medicines

To ensure access to affordable medicines, particularly in developing countries, is one of the great challenges faced by the international community. At the 2001 Doha Ministerial Conference, the groundbreaking "Declaration on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and Public Health" was adopted. In its aftermath, new legal instruments were developed both at WTO and EC level. While the focus at the WTO lay on how countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity for pharmaceuticals could make effective use of compulsory licensing, the EC adopted a regulation to promote differential pricing for needed medicines. The authoress focuses on these responses developed under the TRIPS Agreement and in the EC. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the new legal instruments and highlights contrasts and interlinkages between the pursued strategies. TOC:From the contents: Introduction.- Access to Affordable Medicines and the TRIPS Agreement: Affordable Medicines - The Access Framework; Patent Protection for Pharmaceuticals and the TRIPS Agreement; Conclusion.- Emergence of a New Approach: The Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health: Emergence of a New Approach; The Doha Declaration in Detail; Conclusion.- Developing Responses: Compulsory Licensing and Differential Pricing: Compulsory Licensing; Related Developments in the EC; Contrasts and Interlinkages between the Activities on the WTO and EC Levels.- Summary of Conclusions.- Bibliography.- Abbreviations