UK-INDIA TRADE: “Access to medicines must be defended in any final agreement, campaigners say”
Date: 10 April 2025
Campaigns: Pharma, Trade
Cleodie Rickard, trade campaign manager at Global Justice Now said:
With trade negotiations between the UK and India reaching their final stages, it is absolutely vital that access to medicines are defended in any final agreement. We know that the UK Government, lobbied by Big Pharma, has been pressuring India behind closed doors to adopt destructive intellectual property demands, which would hand corporations power to drive up medicines prices both in the global south and for our NHS. “The same mega-corporations will also be able to sue India over public policies, if secret tribunals known as ISDS are put in the parallel investment treaty as is being alluded to. The UK Government must drop these destructive demands, which would have disastrous consequences for global health”
NOTES TO EDITOR
- Leading civil society organisations this week sent a joint letter to Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds, raising alarm over provisions in the UK-India trade deal that could severely restrict India’s ability to produce life-saving, affordable medicines. Read the letter in full here: https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Letter-to-UK-government-on-IP-in-UK-India-FTA.pdf
