[e-drug] Canada to export ARV drug under CL to Rwanda

["E-Drug" <e-drug@healthnet.org>]

E-DRUG: Canada to export ARV drug under CL to Rwanda
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[Canada, in world first, to export AIDS drugs to Rwanda under a compulsory license. Thanks to David Legge for spotting this. It would however be interesting to know the price of this product. Moderator]

Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 07:00 EDT (AFP)

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/419761

MONTREAL --- Canada has become the first country to notify the World Trade Organization that it has agreed to allow a Canadian company to make generic medicines for export.

"The WTO received from Canada, on 4 October 2007, the first notification  from any government that it has authorized a company to make a generic  version of a patented medicine for export under special WTO provisions agreed in  2003," the WTO said in a statement.

The triple combination AIDS therapy drug TriAvir will now be made in Canada by the Canadian company Apotex and exported to Rwanda. Earlier this year, Rwanda informed the WTO that it intended to import some 260,000 boxes of the drug from Canada over the next two years. "Canada's notification completes the circle. Both notifications were required for the medicine to be exported to Rwanda under an important agreement among WTO members reached on 30 August 2003," the WTO said.

Under the terms of the WTO accord, a country can issue a "compulsory license" to a national company allowing it to reproduce patented medicines for export to meet emergency needs such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.