MONTREAL, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - Canada has become the first country to notify the World Trade Organization that it has agreed to allow a Canadian company to make generic medicines for export, the world body said Friday.
"The WTO received from Canada, on 4 October 2007, the first notification from any government that it has authorized a company to make a generic version of a patented medicine for export under special WTO provisions agreed in 2003," the WTO said in a statement.
The triple combination AIDS therapy drug TriAvir will now be made in Canada by the Canadian company Apotex and exported to Rwanda.
Earlier this year, Rwanda informed the WTO that it intended to import some 260,000 boxes of the drug from Canada over the next two years.
"Canada's notification completes the circle. Both notifications were required for the medicine to be exported to Rwanda under an important agreement among WTO members reached on 30 August 2003," the WTO said.
Under the terms of the WTO accord, a country can issue a "compulsory license" to a national company allowing it to reproduce a patented medicines for export to meet emergency needs such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
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