Civil society organisations and individual experts working on intellectual property and access to medicines have reached out to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to provide “clear instructions” to the Commerce Ministry to take a proactive role in the on-going TRIPS waiver text-based negotiations at the WTO and fight for an equitable deal.

“...We congratulate you on your statement at the Vaccine Summit. You are right when you stated that WTO rules, particularly TRIPS, need to be more flexible. The Ministry of Commerce must take this message and involve proactively in the text-based negotiations and provide leadership to the coalition of 65 WTO members cosponsoring the (India-South Africa waiver) proposal,” a letter written by  health-based CSOs and  medical experts on Saturday pointed out.

Hectic text-based negotiations are on at the WTO headquarters in Geneva to try to get a consensus on  the TRIPS waiver proposal so that a pact can be in place by the WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) next month.

The CSOs expressed concern about developed countries trying to dilute the TRIPS waiver proposal that was envisaged by South Africa and India as a tool to make Covid-19 vaccines and other medical products affordable and available for all nations. Attempts are also being made to bring in TRIPS plus (more stringent than existing rules) provisions, they said.

The signatories of the letter include representatives of the Forum for Medical Ethics Society, Campaign for Access to Medicines, Diagnostics and Devices-India, Drug Action Forum, Initiative for Health & Equity in Society,

Campaign for Affordable Trastuzumab and All India Drug Action Network, as well as health experts including Mira Shiva, Ramya Sheshadri, Chinu Srinivasan and Amar Jesani.

The experts pointed out that the scope of the negotiating text at the moment was limited to just vaccines and there was an urgent need to include therapeutics and diagnostics within the scope of the decision instead of a process to decide on the extension on later date.

Moreover, there was a need to build in a waiver of exclusive rights to facilitate a user-friendly mechanism, especially to cover products with pending applications at the national and international process under the patent cooperation treaty (PCT). 

The letter added that the TRIPS-plus condition of allowing disclosure of undisclosed information only in the case of a compulsory license has to go as the current rules already allow disclosure of information without linking it with a compulsory licence. 

‘There are other TRIPS plus conditions such as the notification requirements and anti-diversion clauses. These conditions should be removed because the proposal should not result in the normalisation of TRIPS-plus conditions for the use of compulsory license,” the letter said.

The actions of the Commerce Ministry regarding the TRIPS waiver proposal since the second part of 2021 are opaque and “chillingly silent”, the letter observed. 

Throughout the Quad process (involving negotiations between the US, the EU, India and South Africa) as well as after the tabling of the text, there is no statement or explanation clarifying India’s position on the TRIPS waiver, it said.

Sources close to the government, however, said that India was deeply engaged in the TRIPS waiver negotiations and was trying to get an outcome that would include a TRIPS waiver not only for vaccines and medical tools but also for tecnology transfer.

“The Quad engagement has proven to be a failure and the text-based negotiations provide an opportunity to rectify the mistakes,” the letter pointed out. 

At the virtual Global Covid Summit hosted by US President Joe Biden earlier this month, Modi said countries must build a resilient global supply chain and enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines.

“WTO rules, particularly TRIPS need to be more flexible,” he said.

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