Red tape can kill!

This is why the government should cut it. Producing generic life-saving antiretroviral drugs for specific countries with patent owner consent proved an odyssey for Apotex. (Globe and Mail)

But under Canada's legislation, the African country's interest was not enough for Apotex, the only company to express interest in selling the medication at cost, to produce and ship the drugs.

Apotex had to get permission, or a voluntary licence, from brand-name pharmaceutical companies Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. and GlaxoSmithKline Inc., which together hold patents for the three components in Apo-TriAvir in Canada.

It then needed to get a compulsory licence from the federal Commissioner of Patents before it could formally submit a bid to the open tender process by the Rwandan government that is required by the WTO deal.

Why isn't interest by both parties and patent owner consent sufficient? Why all the paperwork, delays and civil servants? I don't get it.

An Industry Canada report tabled in December said the government had no plans to change the process.

They bloody should!