Sampath, Padmashree Gehl --- "The TRIPS Agreement and Health Innovation in Bangladesh" [2011] ELECD 964; in Shadlen, C. Kenneth; Guennif, Samira; Guzmán , Alenka; Lalitha, N. (eds), "Intellectual Property, Pharmaceuticals and Public Health" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Intellectual Property, Pharmaceuticals and Public Health

Editor(s): Shadlen, C. Kenneth; Guennif, Samira; Guzmán , Alenka; Lalitha, N.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849800143

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: The TRIPS Agreement and Health Innovation in Bangladesh

Author(s): Sampath, Padmashree Gehl

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

12. The TRIPS agreement and health
innovation in Bangladesh
Padmashree Gehl Sampath

As more and more countries are beginning to acknowledge the need to
build science-based health innovation systems, Bangladesh is in a privi-
leged position due to its established pharmaceutical sector. Local pharma-
ceutical firms dominate the production landscape with a wide range
of generics that include antiulcerants, fluoroquinolones, antirheumatic
non-steroid drugs, non-narcotic analgesics, antihistamines, and oral anti-
diabetic drugs. As a least developed country, Bangladesh is exempted
from implementing the pharmaceutical patenting provisions of the TRIPS
agreement until 2016, an exemption from which its own local pharma-
ceutical firms could benefit extensively.
The local pharmaceutical sector exports a wide range of pharma-
ceutical products (therapeutic class and dosage forms) to 67 countries,
and firms are in numerous partnerships with Chinese, Indian and
other international firms to expand their technological know-how. The
prospect of TRIPS compliance by 2016 and the impending opening up
of the local market to international competition (presently, only those
drugs which are not locally produced can be imported) is transforming
not only the local firm-level strategies for pharmaceutical production,
but also increasingly the publicly provided healthcare services available
in the country.
This chapter uses original empirical data collected by the author during
a sector-wide survey in 2007, updated in 2010, to analyse the impact of pat-
enting as under the TRIPS agreement on health innovation in Bangladesh.
The analysis seeks to provide some answers to an important question in
...