The most important commitment made by the Argentinian government as part of the reciprocal trade agreement with the United States signed in February 2026, was submitting to congress for consideration and obtaining a vote on ratification of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) by today, 30 April 2026.
The final approval of PCT has remained pending since 1998. At that time, the Senate approved it, but it never made it to the Chamber of Deputies. Nearly 30 years later, the current government started the process at the lower chamber but the parliamentary debate was suspended without a rescheduled date, amid tensions between the government and domestic pharmaceutical laboratories, thus, missing the only deadline included in the trade agreement for IP matters.
CILFA, the association of local laboratories, have requested that ratification of PCT is made with a reservation to Chapter II of the treaty—the section governing the international patent examination—, as recently done by Uruguay, arguing that its application would facilitate evergreening and negatively impact access to generic medicines. Such reservation would require sending the bill back to the Senate, thereby delaying its approval. On the other hand, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CAEMe (representing pharma and biotech companies), and AmCham Argentina called for the text to be approved as originally passed by the Senate in 1998, without modifications.
