A WTO accord allowing governments to break drug patents in health emergencies preserves manufacturers' rights to contest violations before the trade body, the pharmaceutical industry said.
"It's a political declaration, which means it's just a statement, nothing binding," said Mark Grayson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America, which represents Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Eli Lilly & Co and other drugmakers.
"It's not really a concession."
Poor countries secured the agreement this week allowing them to violate patents held by drug companies to obtain medicines to fight pandemics like HIV/AIDS and malaria. The accord was pivotal to getting those nations to support a broad effort by WTO members to open world markets from food to financial services.
The WTO supports "members' right to protect public health and, in particular, promote access to medicines for all," according to a declaration adopted by the group's 142 member governments at a meeting in Doha, Qatar.
Drug companies had argued that allowing governments to ignore patents would serve as a disincentive to research and develop drugs against AIDS and other diseases. After the agreement was reached, they said they were satisfied.
"The final text maintains the current legal provisions" of the WTO law protecting patents, said Harvey Bale, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations, which represents Pharmacia Corp, AstraZeneca Plc and other drugmakers, in a statement.
AIDS activists, whose pressure on WTO members for the accord was called decisive by representatives from Pakistan and other developing nations, dismissed the industry's argument.
"The drug companies are trying to downgrade the fact they lost this fight," said Tanya Ehrmann, director of public policy at AIDS Action, a national non-profit organization.
The agreement gives developing countries "some cover" to break patents that they lacked before, she said.
One patent lawyer said the agreement will hurt major drug manufacturers, since it may prompt them to pull out of countries that declare emergencies as generic manufacturers undercut them in price.
"Overall, this is bad news for large pharmaceutical companies, since they will need to bring more lawsuits and may ultimately have less control over the market for generic versions of their drugs," said Bradley Wright, a lawyer with Banner & Witcoff in Washington.
It may also lead to an increase in counterfeit drugs imported to the US, he said.
Yet pharmaceutical companies say the document's impact will be limited because patents are rarely enforced in AIDS-stricken countries anyhow. The real barrier to getting more medicine to patients is the lack of viable public health-care systems in Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America, they said.
Of 795 potential patents on 15 different AIDS drugs in 53 African counties, only 172 patents exist, according to a survey of pharmaceutical companies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, last month.
India and other developing countries are not yet bound by the WTO patent-protection agreement, Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or Trips, although they will be by 2016, according to this week's accord.
Lobbyists for reducing patent protections on life-saving pharmaceuticals say agreements to amend the intellectual property protections will be settled long before then.
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