Drug giants bow to health needs

Drug giants bow to health needs

The international pharmaceutical industry suffered a rare
setback on Thursday when it abandoned its challenge to a South
African law which allows for the import of brand-name drugs used
in the treatment of AIDS from nations where they are sold more
cheaply. The settlement serves as belated recognition of public
health needs and common sense.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of South Africa
and 39 international drug companies -- which together are worth
more than 10 times South Africa's gross domestic product -- had
been trying to block Pretoria's Medicines and Related Substances
Control Amendment Act. They claimed the law was an infringement
on the 20-year patent rights that guarantee funding for research
into new and better drugs.

South African AIDS activists argue that the legislation is
desperately needed by the 4.7 million South Africans living with
HIV/AIDS, many of which cannot afford the life-extending drug
cocktails shown to drastically cut AIDS deaths in many western
countries.

Apart from the proposition that the right to health supersedes
intellectual property rights, AIDS activists ventured the
argument that the alleged violations of intellectual property
rights do not threaten the companies' quest for profits, since
tax breaks compensated them for their research and many compounds
in patented drugs came from the research of scientists who were
given public, not private sector funding.

Just how grossly overpriced AIDS drugs have become was exposed
some months ago when Cipla, an Indian company, offered to produce
a triple-combination HIV cocktail for less than a dollar a day
for supply to international relief agencies on the condition that
they provide it to AIDS sufferers for free. India, with tens of
millions of impoverished citizens, has never played the giants'
drug patent game.

The international pharmaceutical companies could turn the
public tide against them by working with medical authorities in
developing countries to provide ways of getting their miracle
cures to the people who need them.

The drug companies have built massive empires in the noble
cause of healing the sick. It is time they took some of those
profits and put them back where they came from, instead of making
lame, legalistic excuses while people die.

-- The Bangkok Post