A campaign is building up amongst some of the top NGOs across the world against the US stand on intellectual property rights in pharmaceutical industry. Some of them like Medicines Sans Frontiers, Health Action International, Peoples Health Movement, OXFAM and Health GAP have been extremely vocal on this issue in recent months. The US has been holding the view for long that IPR protection is the key to promote research and development in pharma industry. This view has not, however, been subscribed by developing countries and consumer activists of even developed countries. Leading NGOs are opposing the US position on the basis of the evidence that IPR protection is not the sole inducement for pharmaceutical companies for finding new molecules. Of the 1,393 new drugs approved for marketing between 1975 and 1999, only 16 were developed for TB and other tropical diseases, which account for 11.4 percent of the global disease burden. Similarly out of the 371 biotechnology drugs under development now by 144 companies, hardly any are for tropical diseases. What emerges out of this is the fact that patents alone cannot stimulate research for new drugs especially those required for neglected diseases unless they constitute a profitable market for the pharmaceutical producers.

On the other hand, patent protection is clearly recognized as a barrier to access to essential medicines as it increases drug prices and severely restricts generic competition. The generics industry plays an important social function in providing low cost life saving drugs to poor people not only in developing countries but also in the US. This concern is being strongly expressed in some of the states in the US of late. The US Supreme Court's recent ruling in favour of Maine Rx, a programme of the state of Maine, forces drug companies to lower prices on prescription medicines for the poor and the uninsured. Maine Rx, approved by the state legislature in 2000, was intended to use the state's buying power under the federal Medicaid programme to negotiate bulk discounts from drug companies for working poor, retirees and others who do not receive government supported health coverage. There are nearly 3 lakh such residents in Maine alone. The legislation, now upheld by the Supreme Court, also empowers Maine to impose price control if the drug prices do not drop in three years. The fact that a dozen other states in the US are planning to follow the Maine model is a clear indication of the growing public resentment to high prices of drugs under a tight patent regime. It is no secret that the returns the drug companies get out of patent protection is several times more than what they spend for bringing out a new molecule. The pressure on pharmaceutical companies in the US has been building up for some time as the drug prices are much lower in Canada partly because of the government price caps. These signals should, hopefully, soften the US stand on IPR in the next round of WTO talks scheduled for September.