Local production of pharmaceuticals and related technology transfer: A series of case studies by the UNCTAD Secretariat

Overview

This series of case studies on local pharmaceutical production and related technology transfer in Argentina, Bangladesh, Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Jordan, Thailand and Uganda was undertaken by the Intellectual Property Unit in UNCTAD’s Division on Investment and Enterprise, Investment Capacity- Building Branch.

The results of the case studies show that the conditions under which technology transfer results in strengthening local production, and the ways and means in which this promotes greater access to medicines, are highly complex. While helping to bring out the relevance of these parameters, these important results on local production and access to medicines lead us to push the boundaries of our understanding. Although access to medicines is being enhanced through local production, the project and its results suggest that a coherent framework that links local production to greater access from the onset within countries is urgently called for to harness the full potential of local production capacities. Improvement in access to medicines in the context of local production should not be incidental but should be an explicit goal.