Parallel Imports of Pharmaceuticals: Doha versus Free Trade Agreements

Parallel Imports of Pharmaceuticals:Doha versus Free Trade Agreements
NG-LOY WEE LOON

ISBN 9781841138015
Bloomsbury Publishing

THE PURPOSE OF this paper is to examine how bilateralism has been used to restrict parallel importation of on-patent pharmaceutical drugs in a manner which challenges—or, as one critic has put it, undermines—the international consensus reached at the Doha WTO Ministerial Conference. The bilateral agreements which have this effect are the US–Singapore, US–Australia and US-Morocco free trade agreements. To explain the various issues involved in the debate surrounding parallel importation of medicines, it is convenient to start with the litigation between the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PMA) and the South African Government when the latter proposed a law in 1997 aimed at, inter alia, legitimising parallel importation of drugs.