Kenyan government withdraws ammendments to Industrial Property Act
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Government of Kenya withdrew an amendment to the Industrial Property Act,
which would have prohibited parallel imports of drugs. This innocuous looking
piece of amendment would have meant that:
1. The government and their procurement agencies would be forced to first get
consent from the medicines patent holder before shopping around the world for
the best price and importing that medicine into Kenya
2. The government would be required to first negotiate with a patent holder
before issuing a license for a third party to manufacture or import a medicine
needed to address serious problems of medicines supply during health emergencies
This amendment was carefully drafted to alter the detail of Industrial Property
Act of 2001 under a miscellaneous amendment bill which would have killed the
very spirit of the act which was to make drugs cheaper.
It was surprising that during the first two readings very few members of the
parliament including the Parliamentary Health Committee noticed the
implications of the ammnendment.
The Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal wrote to the Ministry of
Justice and Constitutional Affairs about the implications the amendment would
have on the drug prices. Members of the civil societies wrote to the Parliament
and had demonstrations against the amendments.
On 27th July after realizing the implications of the amendment; the Minister of
Justice and Constitutional Affairs told the Parliament it was withdrawing the
amendments
Dr.S.K.Sharif
Ministry of Health
mailto:sksharif@ikenya.com
|