The event was organized by the WTO Secretariat again in close collaboration with the secretariats of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). In his opening remarks, Deputy Director-General Xiaozhun Yi said: “Collectively, we have made huge efforts to consolidate the most pertinent material relating to the interface between trade and health. These efforts base our respective capacity building activities on a better informed factual background. They are made in recognition of the complementary role played by the three organizations that needs to be equally mirrored at domestic level through collaboration between different government departments in charge of health, trade or intellectual property.” DDG Yi's full speech is available here.

The workshop reviewed the system of multilateral trade agreements as part of the wider action to address needs specific to public health. In doing so, it aimed to build national policymakers’ capacity to analyse policy choices in areas where trade, intellectual property (IP) and public health all play a part. It addressed policy issues in those areas and their relationship with the WTO’s multilateral trade agreements which need to be thoroughly understood in order to shape practical responses to contemporary public health challenges.

“In line with the more recent discussions that we have witnessed in the TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] Council and elsewhere, the outcome of past workshops has highlighted the need to move from highly specialized training towards a capacity building activity that looks at trade and public health in a more holistic manner,” noted DDG Yi.

As a programme tailored for senior policymakers, the workshop included a combination of expert presentations, interactive debates on cross-cutting themes linking trade agreements to topical issues, such as non-communicable diseases, and case studies, as well as presentations from the participants. In addition to an introductory panel discussion to map the interface between health, trade and intellectual property, some of the other topics covered by the programme included:

• economics of innovation and access to health technologies
• public health determinants
• the intellectual property system as a determinant for innovation and access
• pricing and procurement policies
• competition policy and rules
• health services
• the Trade Facilitation Agreement
• health-related provisions in regional trade agreements
• regulatory issues, including approval, quality control and effectiveness of medicines, the protection of clinical trial data under the TRIPS Agreement, and health-related measures in the WTO’s committees dealing with technical barriers to trade (TBT, which deals with product standards, regulations and labelling) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS, i.e. food safety and animal and plant health)

The 31 participants mainly came from health and trade ministries, as well as from intellectual property offices. They included representatives from Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Burundi, Ecuador, Fiji, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Seychelles, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, Tajikistan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Viet Nam.

These are some of their comments:

•  “The workshop will strengthen the platform for inter-ministerial cooperation.” (participant from Ukraine)
• “The training activity will be helpful to develop our national intellectual property policy in relation to health aspects.” (participant from the UAE)
• “Very useful training activity to support negotiation and implementation of WTO agreements, policy development, legislation and capacity building.” (participant from Kenya)
• “It has been highly valuable. Understood in depth and appreciate TRIPS flexibilities with regard to access to affordable medicines.” (participant from Seychelles)

This latest in a series of events that began in 2005 broadly followed the approach developed in the WHO-WIPO-WTO trilateral study “Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade”, which was published in 2013. The workshop was followed by two complementary trilateral activities: the Workshop on Patentability Criteria and the Symposium on Public Health.