Access to Medicines

We welcome today's decision and are pleased that all the Members of the WTO have come together to resolve this very complex and important issue. Over the past eight months, many participants from our government, from other countries, and from the pharmaceutical industry, have worked together to find a constructive balance that ensures access to medicines by those most in need while not undermining intellectual property rights that foster the research and development necessary to produce life saving drugs.

Today's decision by the General Council strikes exactly that appropriate balance. The decision will ensure that patent rules do not prevent a country that lacks capacity to produce medicines for itself from obtaining them from abroad. At the same time it will put appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that the solution will be used only for its intended purposes.

We recognize the fine leadership and diplomatic skills that Ambassador Perez Motta and Ambassador Menon have contributed, as well as the support and counsel provided by the other Ambassadors with whom we have worked so closely to devise this solution. They richly deserve the thanks and praise they received from all of us earlier this week -- and that appreciation is especially heartfelt from me.

We have traveled a long road together from the beginning conversations pre-Doha to our conclusion today but none of us have lost the vision of our original concerns in responding to the horrific ravages that HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics have brought to our world and particularly to the continent of Africa.

All of us were touched yesterday when our friends from Africa reminded us of how this decision has been all about their urgent needs, and we are pleased that we have all found the means to reach out and help address those needs. I thank them personally for their patience and their understanding.

Today's action demonstrates how the Members of the WTO can and do come together to promote the greater good. I can think of no finer way to finish our work here in Geneva as we prepare to head off for the Cancun Ministerial Conference.