ALGERIANS DIGEST SPECIAL 301 REPORT WITH A HINT OF

UNCLAS ALGIERS 000546 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DOL PASS MPETTIS DOC PASS OMETZGAR/HLANMAN NSC PASS TPOSNER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ETRD KIPR AG SUBJECT: ALGERIANS DIGEST SPECIAL 301 REPORT WITH A HINT OF SMALL PROGRESS REF: SECSTATE 45089 This cable contains company proprietary information and should not be shared outside U.S. Government channels. Not for internet distrubtion. ¶1. (SBU) Ambassador visited MFA Director General for the Americas (A/S equivalent) Fatiha Selmane on April 29 to deliver reftel demarche and discuss broadly our objections to Algerian treatment of intellectual property issues. Separately, we delivered the same demarche to the Algerian Ministry of Commerce on May 6. In both cases, we presented the industry-specific listing for pharmaceuticals as a significant obstacle to Algeria's WTO hopes, and urged that Algeria consider creating an entity similar to USTR that could rise above interministerial politics and execute the steps needed for accession. We renewed a request for the Ambassador to meet with Commerce Minister Hachemi Djaaboub to discuss specific WTO recommendations, and Selmane said she would look into getting the meeting scheduled. ¶2. (SBU) Reaction to the Special 301 listing has been muted, with little press coverage and no official reaction from the Algerian government. Our contacts at the Ministry of Commerce had no official reaction to the demarche, while Selmane thanked the Ambassador for offering some clarification of the report's significance. The Ambassador stressed that, while IPR was a problem in other sectors as well, the Ministry of Health in particular had frustrated foreign pharmaceutical companies' efforts to secure Algerian government protection against generic competition. Selmane acknowledged the difficulty to coordinate between Algeria's health ministry and patent authorities, and said that coordination between ministries should be the MFA's job. We expect the next step in IPR discussions to be the Ambassador's meeting with Djaaboub on WTO. ¶3. (SBU) Ambassador met on May 7 with a senior Eli Lilly official visiting Algeria who opined that U.S. pressure on the GoA had helped in the case of an Algerian generic produced locally aimed at competing with Lilly's patented Cialis product. (Comment: this case was also the subject of a letter from AUSTR Donnelly to the Algerian Health Minister in 2007 to which the Algerians never responded despite our repeated inquiries. End Comment.) The official noted that Lilly has received no official word from the Algerian Ministry of Health or anyone else. However, Lilly understands that the Algerian generic has now either stopped production or reduced production dramatically. The Algerian generic is now difficult to find locally, and Cialis has lost no market share. No other competing generic has been registered. That said, the Algerian generic remains registered and so Cialis brand is still exposed. Lilly has no confidence that the Algerian courts could provide a remedy any time soon, so for now it is willing to accept this status quo. Ambassador urged Lilly to work with other pharmaceutical companies suffering from IPR infringements problems and through PhRMA or other associations develop a common platform of regulatory and/or legal changes to propose to the Algerian authorities as a group. FORD