India-U.K. FTA will tighten screws on generic drugs: Doctors Without Borders Médecins Sans Frontières

The proposals on intellectual property rights in the draft India-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement will hurt the global supply of generic medicines, Doctors Without Borders warned on Wednesday. In a press note, the international organisation said low medicine prices help save lives in vulnerable communities across the world but the intellectual property chapter of the India-U.K. FTA contains “harmful IP provisions”. The IP-related chapter, leaked on October 31, showed that the controversial provisions tabled by the U.K. to “tighten the screws on producing, supplying and exporting affordable generic medicines from India”. In effect, this provision applies only to India as the U.K. does not have a pre-grant opposition system - this goes directly against the current Indian patent law, which allows patent opposition proceedings both before and after the grant of a patent,” the MSF said in its observations on the IP provisions. MSF said that the IP provisions brought up by the U.K. opened up possibilities for “excessive enforcement” that are likely to create difficulties for both Indian pharmaceutical companies as well as the legal set-up.