Local pharmaceutical industry and the medical community have vowed to work together to bring drug prices down in the country.
A seminar on the sidelines of the World Social Forum on people-related Intellectual Property Rights here saw a unanimous recommendation to this effect, with the members of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association teaming up with the office-bearers of the Karachi chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association.
A pressure group involving both the parties along with the representatives of the general public is also being launched as a spin over of the Forum, said a press release here on Thursday. The speakers at the seminar stressed the need to change IP laws in Pakistan to allow public access to cheaper generic medicines.
The speakers included PMA Karachi President Dr Naseer Baloch, the chief executive of a local pharmaceutical company Pharmevo, Haroon Qasim, Dr Khawar Mehdi from Getzpharma, and patent attorney Abdul Hameed Iqbal. They pointed out that the recent changes in the IP law-after the Patents (Amendments) Ordinance 2002-have disallowed process patents, and now it would become impossible for Pakistani scientists to come up with any patents of their own. Speakers also said that the patents could not be a right of the multinationals since they were in essence a grant by the government for the betterment of the society in general.
Unless society could benefit from these patents, they did not serve the purpose and thus could not be claimed as any right by anybody.
The seminar was organised by the IP News magazine.-PR
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