Pharmaceutical Patent Policy in Developing Countries: Learning from the Canadian Experience

17 Pages Posted: 26 Mar 2010

See all articles by Jean-Frederic Morin

Jean-Frederic Morin

Université Laval - Departement de Science Politique

Mélanie Bourassa Forcier

Université de Sherbrooke

Date Written: March 22, 2010

Abstract

The Canadian experience could be of interest to large developing countries with significant generic manufacturing capacities, foreign investment in the pharmaceutical sector, modest private investment in drug discovery, numerous international IP obligations and constant pressure from the US. These countries should find in this study a sign that, even in presence of international trade agreements, there is room to make medicines more accessible.

Each of the six following sections presents distinctive features of the Canadian patent policy, following a roughly chronological order. To begin, we provide an overview of the history of compulsory license rights in Canada. For a length of time, compulsory licenses were considered an essential tool for containing drug expenditures in Canada. In the third section, we describe the uniqueness of the Canadian price regulations scheme and focus on the role of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board. Following this analysis, we highlight the ‘early working’ and ‘stockpiling’ exceptions introduced to limit the negative impact of restricted compulsory license rights on the access to medicines. In the fifth section, we draw attention to the Canadian Patented Medicines Regulations, sometimes associated to an ‘automatic injunction tool’ available to the pharmaceutical industry. The sixth section provides a review of the history of the different patent terms that have existed in Canada. This chapter ends with a review of the Canadian compulsory licenses policy. While the earlier regime was abandoned to comply with NAFTA requirements, the federal government amended its patent law in 2004, following a WTO decision authorizing compulsory licensing to provide countries with insufficient manufacturing capacities. Although this chapter has a clear legal perspective on the issue of access to medicines, one of its main conclusion is that outcomes depend more on politics, especially international politics, than international law.

Suggested Citation

Morin, Jean-Frederic and Bourassa Forcier, Mélanie, Pharmaceutical Patent Policy in Developing Countries: Learning from the Canadian Experience (March 22, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1576670 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1576670

Jean-Frederic Morin (Contact Author)

Université Laval - Departement de Science Politique ( email )

Ste-Foy, Quebec G1K 7P4
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://ulaval.academia.edu/JeanFredericMorin

Mélanie Bourassa Forcier

Université de Sherbrooke ( email )

2500 bd de l'Universite
Sherbrooke, Québec J1K 2R1
Canada

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