The voice and concerns of the developing countries had little impact while definition of counterfeit medical products was prepared by the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) and interests of the third world is unlikely to make much impact in the WHO executive board and in the general assembly.
As claimed by the small scale industry and public interest organizations in India for long, the note prepared by the WHO secretariat ahead of the executive board meeting also reveals that the IMPACT had little representation from the third world countries.
"The IMPACT, which WHO launched in 2006, brings together the most relevant stakeholders with the specific aims of promoting international collaboration and coordination and supporting the rapid development and application of new policies and technical approaches," claims the note.
But going by the own admission of WHO, IMPACT is heavily funded by the developed countries as cited by the Indian critics who also alleged that the third world countries were left with no room for negotiations unlike in the usual international negotiations by the world health body.
"Its funding (nearly US$ 2.3 million for 2006-2008) comes mainly from the European Commission and the government of Australia, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands (altogether 62 per cent) and the WHO (30 per cent)," the WHO note said.
"The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (IFPMA) has been playing a leadership role in IMPACT. IFPMA is the head of the Technology Working Group. Further, it is a part of the Planning Group which is the main decision making body of IMPACT. IFPMA has consistently opposed the supply of medicines by the Indian generic industry. Their influence on IMPACT has provided them an opportunity to put in place an international regime that will result in the confiscation and/or delay of Indian medicines at ports around the world," SPIC vice chairman Lalit Kumar Jain commented.
"Many pharmaceutical industry organizations based in developed countries have actively participated in formulating the definition. They also engage in various other forums in promoting an extremely stringent intellectual property enforcement agenda to circumvent fair competition in generic trade in pharmaceuticals in and from developing countries," said Centre for Trade & Development (Centad) in a letter to the Ministry of Health, calling for the rejection of the IMPACT draft.
"IMPACT works closely with several organisations such as Interpol, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Customs Organisation (WCO), World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), European Commission and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA) which are institutions engaged in IP enforcement and in particular in promoting standards that go beyond the TRIPS Agreement. The majority of IMPACT's funding is from developed countries including the European Commission who has a recognized stand on counterfeiting and IPR enforcement," according to a joint statement by a group of leading public interest groups.
"The manner in which IMPACT has functioned has completely bypassed the process of international negotiations of the World Health Assembly. The recent process of drafting and negotiating the Global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property presents a model of international negotiation that involved all member States of the WHO, invited and included experts from across the spectrum and used public health as the fulcrum for the entire process. This is in contrast to the manner in which the WHO has approached the counterfeit issue. While the IGWG process was member driven, open and transparent, inclusive of public interest groups and where international norms were set through negotiations between countries, the IMPACT process has been driven by a heavy involvement of the private sector, been lacking in transparency and has in effect substituted the process of international negotiations between countries in arriving at international law and policy," they said.