The trade related aspects of intellectual property rights agreement (trips)‎ and its potential implications on the pharmaceutical industry in Jordan

Abstract EN

This study aims at discussing the potential impact of TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the pharmaceuticals in Jordan.

The impact of the TRIPS Agreement touches most of the business sectors in Jordan particularly pharmaceuticals through the enforcement of patents and copyrights protection.

Enforcement of TRIPS will prevent domestic drug producers from producing patented drugs without obtaining a production license from the patent holder.

In Jordan, the local Pharmaceutical industry is a mixture of 2 % under license, 58 % generic and 40 % reproduced as in patent.

Hence, the immediate effect of TRIPS will be mostly limited to a few patented products and the value of pharmaceuticals that may be affected by patent requirement is around $ 9 million annually, as the old Jordanian patent law only protected the processing production method not the final products.

The study concludes that the TRIPS agreement provides incentives to innovate new products and processes, attract foreign investment, promote exports, improve the quality of products and facilitate transfer of technology to this sector in the long run.

However, in the short run, the enforcement of the TRIPS Agreement constitutes a challenge to pharmaceutical industry in terms of high cost of getting a license to produce patented drugs besides the possibility of raising prices ofpatented drugs in the domestic market and the expected severe competition for the local industries from the dominant multinational corporations.

In Pharmaceutical industry, cost ofproduction and prices for consumers are expected to rise.

To meet the new challenges, the researcher suggests swift adaptation and restructuring, increase competitiveness, technical assistance, and cooperation between the public and private sectors to raise efficiency, quality of products, increase Research and Development, entering into joint ventures, merger and attracting more Foreign Direct Investment to the pharmaceutical sector.