CG to update Patent Act to expand country's medicine market abroad

Chief Adviser (CA) Fakhruddin Ahmed Monday said, the Caretaker Government (CG) would take steps to update the age-old Patent Act - 1911 to avail of the advantage of Bangladesh's LDC status to export medicines as per WTO-TRIPS agreement, reports UNB.

The CA stated this when a 19-member delegation of Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI), led by its president SM Shafiuzzaman, met him at his office Monday afternoon.

The association leader apprised him that Bangladesh along with other LDC countries could manufacture patent drugs, and export to the least developed countries (LDCs) until 2016 as per WTO-TRIPS agreement and Doha declaration.

And it is only Bangladesh that can export patent medicines as an LDC country to 49 other LDCs, as only Bangladesh, out of 50 LDCs, is self-sufficient in manufacturing drugs.

But the country's pharmaceutical industries would not be able to reap the advantage if the Patent Act - 1911 is not updated, BAPI leaders told the CA.

Responding to them, the CA said, he would look into the matter, and talk with the concerned ministries, according to the CA's Press Secretary Syed Fahim Munaim.

Bangladesh is now exporting drugs and pharmaceutical raw materials to 68 countries, meeting 97 per cent local demand, and contributing remarkably to the national economy. The pharmaceutical sector is the second-largest tax-payer, according to the BAPI leaders.

The association leaders also appealed for allocation of two bighas of land to set up a modern drug-testing laboratory in the city that would help in carrying out the bio-equivalent test for domestic drugs, which is mandatory before accessing the international market.

Now the test has to be performed abroad, which is very expensive. If the laboratory can be set up here, they would be able to carry out the bio-equivalent test here at a lesser cost, they claimed.

The CA said he would talk about the matter with the concerned authorities.

About appointment of a drug administrator, he said, the appointment would be given soon, in order to act as a watchdog of the life-saving industry.

As the matter of the reported recent price hike of drugs came up, the pharma industries' owners claimed that the prices of drugs have not been increased to date since 1994.

Among others, Samson H Chowhdury of SQUARE, Mizanur Rahman Sinha of ACME, and owners and chief executives of the country's leading pharmaceutical companies were on the delegation.