Meeting on The Role of Generics and Local Industry in Attaining the MDGs in Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines

June 24-25, 2003. The World Bank, Washington DC. Conference Room: MC 2-800

Scope and Purpose

The endorsement by the World Bank and other international organizations of the MDGs as the appropriate framework for development assistance activities calls for a sectoral analysis of the roles that each sector has to play in order to best contribute to these goals and not to become a bottleneck to its achievement. These meeting is aimed at presenting and discussing a comprehensive set of options that countries and international organizations should consider when designing their pharmaceutical strategies for improving access to drugs in developing countries, especially among the poor, and to identify the required interventions to be carried out at both global and national level. In some cases, policy makers will be able to choose among strategies and mechanisms that might have been previously applied, sometimes successfully, in some countries. Often, innovative approaches will have to be developed in order to address new challenges or the failure of previous approaches.

The meeting will pay an especial attention to the role of generics and to local production, two issues that have been relatively neglected in the recent policy debates, almost exclusively centered on the role of multinational companies and on intellectual property rights. The main purpose of the meeting is to identify the role and opportunities for the World Bank in these two areas.

The morning session of the first day will be devoted to presenting the conclusions of the consultation process, including, the June 2 Workshop. The presentations will concentrate on the main problems identified, as well as the information gaps. In the afternoon session country experiences on generic policies and local production will be presented and discussed. Speakers will focus on lessons learned than can be useful for other countries. Finally, a panel of World Bank staff will discuss the implications of the topics addressed for Bank's policies and operational activities.

The second day will begin with a proposal of strategy options outlined by the Generics Consultative group. The participants will then split into several thematic groups for an in-depth discussion and review of the previous proposal. The groups will report back in the final plenary session that will end with a proposal and discussion of a future action and research agenda.

The sessions will be video-recorded and made available for public access at B-SPAN, the World Bank's web casting station on development issue.

Provisional Program

Tuesday, June 24

8:30-9:00 Registration

9:00-9:30 Opening Remarks

9:30-11:00 Key Issues

Chair: Guy Ellena, Director, Health and Education Unit (CHEDR), IFC

11:00-11:15 Coffee Break

11:15- 1:00 Country Experiences

1:00-2:00 Lunch

2:00-3:30 Country Experiences (cont)

  • India: Dilip Shah, Secretary General Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance
  • Bangladesh: Zafrullah Chowdhury Member, Coordinating Committee People's Health Assembly

    Discussion

  • South Africa: Jonathan Berger, Senior Researcher Law and Treatment Access Unit AIDS Law Project Centre for Applied Legal Studies University of the Witwatersrand, and Treatment Action Campaign
  • South Africa: Shabir Banoo, MCC Representative
  • Egypt: Mohga Kamal Smith, Health Policy Advisor, Oxfam GB
  • Lesotho: Wilbert Bannenberg, Public Health Consultant

    Discussion

3:30-4:00 Coffee break

4:00-5:00 World Bank panel: Needs and perspectives from the Regions (6 speakers)

Chair: Alex Preker, Lead Health Economist, Health, Nutrition and Population (HDNHE), The World Bank

5:00-5:30 Discussion

Wednesday, June 25

9:00-10:00 Plenary session

Generic Consultative Group: Options for the World Bank in order to advance the MDG and the pro-poor agenda (Juan Rovira)

  • Global issues
  • National policies
  • The role of the World Bank

    General discussion

10:00-12:30 Working groups - Discussion of implications for Bank's policies and operations (5 parallel sessions)

  • Generic policies and regulation
  • Procurement
  • Intellectual Property Rights
  • Production
  • Differential pricing

Participants will be allocated to one group. During the last participants (except the chair and the rapporteur) will be allowed to move around to other groups.

Auditorium will be moved to the MC cafeteria private rooms where participants will have a breakfast. Participants will be allocated to one of the group below. During the last 30 minutes participants (except the chair and the repporteur) will be allowed to move around to other groups. 12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2.30 Plenary session

Chair: Robert Hecht, Acting Director and Sector Manager, Health, Nutrition and Population (HDNHE) The World Bank

  • Ellen 't Hoen, Medecins sans Frontieres; Options of the Doha Declaration and Drug Procurement
  • Giorgio Roscigno, Initative of Pharmaceutical Technology Transfer - The I.P.T.T.; Creation of technological platforms in value added generic manufacturing,
  • Ambassador Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe. Chair of the TRIPS Council in 2001 when the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health was adopted.

2:30-3:30 Working groups reporting back to plenary

3:30-3:45 Coffee Break

3:45-4.15 Discussion

4:15-5:15 Future agenda and conclusions

Confirmation

Due to space constraints, please confirm attendance to Akosua Dakwa, adakwa@worldbank.org, phone 202 458 2283.

Participant who are not WB staff will be provided with building passes. You can pick up your visitor pass at the MC reception desk. You'll be requested to show a picture ID.

The address of MC Building is: 1818 H Street N.W.

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