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India FTAs & medicines

India-UK FTA: Public health must get priority in trade talks
12-Jul-2024 Policy Circle
The India-UK FTA is expected to promote the free movement of goods and services, significantly impacting access to pharmaceuticals, medicines, and devices. FTAs pose new challenges for public health activists in India, necessitating appropriate actions to monitor and advocate for change. This is particularly important for public health advocates concerned with the broader commercial determinants of health.
India’s newly amended patent rules threaten affordable medicines in the Global South
2-May-2024 Peoples Dispatch
It is no coincidence that just five days before the amendments were announced, India signed a Free Trade Agreement with the European Free Trade Association.
Implications for intellectual property rights following Switzerland and India’s new free trade agreement
27-Mar-2024 Lexology
The FTA contains various provisions on the protection of intellectual property rights that will influence trade between Swiss and Indian companies.
Swiss trade deal: Is India changing its tune on pharma patents?
27-Feb-2024 SWI
Intellectual property protection for the Swiss pharmaceutical industry has been a key sticking point in negotiations on a free trade agreement with India. Now there seems to be a breakthrough in talks after 16 years. What’s changed?
Thorny clause in ripening India-European Free Trade Association deal may hit generic drug industry
14-Feb-2024 The Hindu
The clause in the draft free trade agreement text could delay access to affordable, generic versions of patented drugs in India by a minimum of six years, according to documents.
New patent rules in India-UK trade agreement will prioritise pharmaceutical profit over public health
13-Feb-2024 AFTINET
The “TRIPS-Plus” provisions in the India-UK Agreement are a dangerous attempt to increase the power of pharmaceutical companies by placing profits before public health.
EFTA-India FTA: Article on protection of undisclosed information (intellectual property chapter draft, Jan 2024)
12-Feb-2024
Letter: Civil society calls on UK Prime Minister to ensure UK-India free trade agreement does not threaten access to affordable medicines
23-Jan-2024 MSF
MSF and over 50 UK-based civil society organisations and individuals sent this open letter to United Kingdom Prime Minister, urging him to commit that the UK-India Free Trade Agreement will not gut the public health safeguards that are in India’s intellectual property laws.
EU trade deals risk affordability of generic medicines for Global South
28-Jul-2023 Politico
The disproportionate intellectual property protections the bloc proposes could threaten the affordability of generics that countries like India and Indonesia export to poorer nations.
Proposed EU-India FTA
30-Jun-2023 Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Can India protect its development objectives by signing a free trade agreement with an unequal partner with different ambitions?
Clamour against United Kingdom’s free-trade negotiator
20-Mar-2023 The Telegraph
Groups from India and nearly 40 countries express concern about a leaked chapter from the proposed FTA that they say appears to represent ‘a wish list’ of the pharmaceutical industry.
India-UK FTA leaked draft reveals nobody’s gain except big pharma
30-Nov-2022 Info Justice
India - UK FTA provisions favor neither India nor the UK except the pharma industry in a big way. It defeats the firm stand taken by the Indian PM three years ago when he decided to pull out of the RCEP against the corporate interests over people’s lives.
MSF responds to UK’s disastrous proposal on intellectual property in UK-India Free Trade Agreement
2-Nov-2022 MSF
UK IP demands contain provisions that would drastically harm access to affordable, lifesaving generic medicines from India, upon which millions of people around the world rely.
After India-Aus FTA, Indian pharma industry sees global opportunities
26-Apr-2022 Business Today
After the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement signed between India and Australia, the domestic pharmaceutical industry is seeing a plethora of opportunities for international trade.
An India-UK trade deal could mean a race to the bottom for Indian workers
1-Feb-2022 New Internationalist
On farmers and food, vaccine inequality, climate justice and digital rights, we need to act in solidarity – and not allow trade rules to sacrifice people to corporate profit.
World has moved on from US, EU’s drug monopoly. India and China are changing IP regulations
4-Jan-2022 The Print
Even without an IP waiver from the WTO, China and India are leading the challenge to the West’s vaccine monopoly.
TRIPS Waiver: A BIT of a challenge for India
24-May-2021 The Wire
Potential BIT claims by foreign pharmaceutical companies against India for the revocation, suspension or non-enforcement of IPRs could undermine the benefits of a potential TRIPS waiver.
India, US trade deal: New Delhi seeks preferential treatment on drugs, other goods
20-Jul-2020 Livemint
India is seeking concessions for generic drugs it exports to the United States in return for opening its dairy markets and slashing tariffs on farm goods as the two sides seek to shore up a new trade deal.
Covid-19: Why India doesn’t need to worry about investor-State dispute settlement claims
2-Apr-2020 Hindustan Times
In order to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) and to boost the public health care system and preparedness, India has taken several regulatory steps.
Can a US-India trade deal permanently alter the way Indians access medicines?
25-Feb-2020 The Wire
US-India IP engagements since 2006 have served the interests of the US through systematic undermining of the legislative safeguards in the Indian Patents Act.