WTO and TRIPS: Introduction

The World Trade Organisation is the international body controlling global trade, including trade in medicines.

It has a number of powers and agreements. The TRIPS agreement has major effects on the way that medicines are traded throughout the world. It is concerned with patents.

What are patents?

Once a drug is developed, its developers can put a patent on that drug, which allows only the developers to produce and sell the drug. It also means that they can charge any price for that drug.

Patents mean that the drug developers can recover the costs that went into the drug being developed. A patent lasts for a fixed period of time. After this time, any drug producer can make the drug. At this point, the cost of the drug usually drops significantly.

In this module

This module will look at the effect of patents on determining drugs’ prices. It will show possible solutions to decreasing the price of medicines, which thus increases access. 

We will look at the World Trade Organisation and its TRIPS agreement, the “safeguards” contained within this agreement and whether they are effective.

Next we will see some examples of countries that have implemented these safeguards successfully. Finally, we will explore some limitations of the TRIPS agreement and intellectual property rights for pharmaceuticals.

Start the module