WTO generics licensing system could prove useful

WHO has said the little-used World Trade Organisation (WTO) licensing system for generic medicines during health emergencies may actually become useful.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the little-used World Trade Organisation (WTO) licensing system for generic medicines during health emergencies may actually become useful.

Critics have branded the system cumbersome and it has been used only once since its 2003 launch.

WHO told a meeting of the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council that regardless, prices of ‘first line’ HIV treatments have fallen drastically because of generic competition, ‘allowing a 12-fold increase in poor patients receiving treatment’.

This demonstrated the importance of generics medicines, WHO said, and the WTO system could prove useful ‘in the future to [further] increase competition from generics’ for HIV, tuberculosis and cancer medicines.