Intellectual Property Rights Series no. 17 Product Patent Protection, the TRIPS LDC Exemption and the Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industry By Sudip Chaudhuri Publisher: TWN Year: 2021 No. of pages: 48

About the Book

As a least developed country (LDC), Bangladesh is currently exempted from the requirements under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to grant patent protection for pharmaceutical products. Consequently, there is scope for the country’s pharmaceutical industry to manufacture and sell medicines whose production would otherwise be controlled by a patent-holding firm.

This paper finds that this opportunity has been made use of, to positive effect: in comparison with neighbouring India where pharmaceutical product patenting is in force, the market for several new pharmaceuticals in Bangladesh is more competitive and the medicines more affordable. Not only has this benefitted patients domestically, but Bangladesh has also played a key role in supplying essential medicines to other countries.

For this potential to be fully realized, however, the Bangladesh government needs to support the technological development of its industry, particularly the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) sector. In addition, Bangladesh should maximize the use of TRIPS flexibilities for the freedom to operate in the pharmaceutical sector, which, as this paper shows, has had significant favourable impact thus far.

SUDIP CHAUDHURI retired as a Professor of Economics from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta after serving there for the last several decades. His research interests include intellectual property rights regimes and the pharmaceutical industry, industrialization and economic development in developing countries, and the role of the state in economic change.

Contents

1     Introduction                                                                                            

2     Status of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Bangladesh                    

3     Post-TRIPS Market for New Medicines: Bangladesh and India

       Market structure                                                                                

       Price comparison                                                                              

4     Need for Industrial Policy to Promote API Sector in Bangladesh        

5     Discussion and Conclusion                                                              

References                                                                                               

Appendix: Molecules Approved for Marketing by the USFDA               

from 2008 to 2018 and Sales Status in Bangladesh and India

in 2019