Given such scenario, CA countries are in need to identify how to guarantee immediate and efficient access to medicines to their populations; and simultaneously, setting the conditions to grant exclusive rights over pharmaceuticals.
It has been argued that IP rights can lead to higher prices to the end consumers. Evidently this creates an obstacle to deal with the serious health problems which many developing economies, Central America among those, are currently facing. Ever since, in order not to infringe their IP commitments, they have found themselves being prevented from resorting to different policy options to counteract the potential negative effects of IP exclusive rights.
This reality has echoed up to the multilateral fora on what can be construed as a new trend in IP Law; one that recognized that developing countries are struggling in their need to obtain recognition of higher values that should not be held conditional upon or which at least should be more seriously considered while making trade policy decisions, in this case; Public Health.
By exploring the different policy alternatives to improve the access to pharmaceuticals, several layers of legislative development come into play. This is due to the countries’ membership to various commercial alliances (regional-international), which curtails the sole possibility to apply territorial measures to solve allegedly unfair practices taking place on a regional basis.
In that context, this research is aiming at providing the relevant stakeholders with some answers to the following questions: what are the existent legislative flexibilities in favor of actively promoting better access to pharmaceutical products?
How are the exceptions and limitations to IP rights being regulated in those countries after adhering to TRIPS PLUS schemes of protection? In orther to assess if these countries have merely duplicated the provisions of the relevant Treaties or have rather tailored them to their particular social needs, especifically, public health.
Beyond Intellectual Property provisions, which other type of supra-national commitments undertaken by developing countries have an impact in the scope and coverage of national health policies?
