While people in rich countries enjoy the benefits of ever-improving drug treatments, in poor countries 30,000 people die every day because effective medicines are too expensive or simply not available. Now World Trade Organisation rules on patents, which are set to come into force in 2005, could make the situation even worse.

Patents give companies the exclusive rights to make, use and sell the patented product for a given number of years.  New WTO's rules on patents and copyright (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights or TRIPs) will give pharmaceutical companies patent protection on all their new drugs for at least 20 years.

Trans-national drug companies helped to set up, and will benefit directly from, TRIPs. The companies hold more than 90 per cent of drugs patents and, thanks to these patents, are able to charge high prices for their drugs and prevent the sale of cheaper versions (called generics). In a nutshell patents keep medicine prices high, so poor people can't afford them.

Drug companies argue that the protection of patents enables them to recoup the costs of the research and development that went into their production. This is true but it's rich country markets that generate super profits for the drug companies - poor people should not pay the penalty for protecting those markets.

Until recently, cheaper copies of life-saving medicines (generics) have been produced by some companies, many of which are based in poor countries. These have offered poor people an affordable alternative to expensive brand-name medicines. The new patent rules threaten this practice because drug companies will be able to use TRIPs to rigidly to enforce their patents in poor as well as rich countries. A recent - much publicised - deal by the World Trade Organisation on TRIPs and access to medicines does little to help poor people access affordable medicines when they are sick.

Oxfam is calling for the World Trade Organisation to reform TRIPs so that poor country governments have the unambiguous right to obtain the cheapest possible life-saving medicines, without facing the threats of legal challenges or trade sanctions. Oxfam is also calling on the pharmaceutical industry, including GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, to support reforms to TRIPs, not to block developing countries from getting access to affordable generics medicines, and to set realistic prices for their medicines so that people who need them in poor countries can afford them.

Together with poor country governments and organisations such as Medicins sans Frontieres, Voluntary Services Overseas and the Treatment Action Campaign we have achieved real change - both in the rules that govern patents and in the attitudes of companies. However there is still some way to go and we still need your support:

Update:
1. WTO negotiations on TRIPs
2. Campaign successes