Drugs Company Announces Generics for HIV/AIDS Treatment
Cheap AIDS Drugs for the Poor?

IPS Correspondent in Davos

Leading drugs manufacturer Pharmacia Corporation has announced licensing to produce generic versions of its anti-retroviral medicine Rescriptor for use in developing countries that are hard hit by HIV/AIDS, but delegates at the World Economic Forum and health activists say other drugs companies must follow this precedent if the pandemic is to be abated.

DAVOS, Switzerland - People with HIV/AIDS in the world's poorest countries will soon have access to an affordable medicine under a new initiative launched at the World Economic Forum by a U.S. pharmaceutical company, giving international generic drugs manufacturers rights to produce and sell its anti-AIDS drug.

Under the programme, Pharmacia Corporation, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, will grant a voluntary license for the HIV/AIDS drug delavirdine to the Netherlands-based International Dispensary Association Foundation (IDA), a global non-profit organisation that promotes low-cost access to medicines, which will in turn issue sub-licenses to generic drugs makers in developing countries.

Delavirdine, traded under the name Rescriptor, was approved and launched in the United States in 1997 as an anti-retroviral therapy recommended by the U.S. Department of Health.

The Pharmacia move could benefit millions of HIV/AIDS patients in 78 developing countries. To qualify for the programme, these countries must have an annual per capita national income of no more than 1,200 dollars and an HIV infection rate of at least one percent of the population.

However, while experts and activists are pleased with the move, they note that Rescriptor is not the most popular drug for treating HIV/AIDS, and urge Pharmacia's competitors to follow that laboratory's example.

The combined population of these countries, which include all sub-Saharan African countries -- the region hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic -- is approximately 3.8 billion people.

"This is an innovative approach to the complex access issue that we believe deserves to be tested in real-world conditions," says Fred Hassan, Pharmacia chairman.

The initiative is the first concrete manifestation of a Harvard University proposal recommending that drug patent-holders award voluntary licenses to generic manufacturers who agree to manufacture medicines for people in developing countries.

The initiative, co-authored by Amir Attaran, research fellow at Harvard University and Michael Friedman, vice-president of Pharmacia, would still give pharmaceutical companies the right to patent protections in countries that do not meet the low-income criteria or have lower HIV/AIDS rates.

Countries like Mexico or Brazil, for example, may not be areas for distribution of the drug but generic companies based there would be able to manufacture delavirdine and sell it on the international market, a move that would further strengthen the world generics market, Attaran told reporters Friday.

Under this model, generic drugs makers, however, would not be given the right to hike up prices either because there will be many license holders in different countries, providing unlimited competition and constantly pushing the price down, or because the IDA could put a price cap on the drug.

IDA will charge a five-percent royalty fee, which officials here said would be used to assist licensees, cover administrative fees and research and to keep the programme going.

IDA and Pharmacia officials did not give a timeframe for when the drug would actually be available at its prospective low price. But said that there were "three or four" generic companies have already expressed interest in getting a license.

When implemented, the programme is likely to anger many patented drugs manufacturers in industrialised countries, who have long resisted licensing of essential drugs for epidemics like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, citing financial risks to profit and to funding for other research programmes.

They also fear that such an initiative, which humanitarian organisations and civil society groups have been demanding, would set a precedent and ultimately shut down their markets in developing countries and lead to the lifting of patents on other drugs.

Under pressure from civil society groups, some of these companies, like GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., have offered drugs at ostensibly discounted prices. Yet, the half-hearted effort did not bring drugs prices down for the millions of poor and ill in the South.

Friedman of Pharmacia, however, said those companies need not worry about their patents in rich countries since the company does not want to mess with the patent system.

Pharmacia says that it will ask generic companies to sell the drug in a different shape and colour from the original drug so that it would be harder to smuggle it back to the United States or to sell in other rich countries.

Anti-retroviral drugs are desperately needed in the developing countries where HIV/AIDS rates are steep, with an estimated 40 million people infected and thousands dying by the day.

A group of panellists gathered here at the World Economic Forum to discuss drugs patents applauded the initiative, but said the battle to terminate the disease in far from over.

They called on other drugs manufactures in rich nations to emulate Pharmacia and appealed to international donors to help finance the plan by providing money for poor countries to purchase the medicine.

"The important thing to recognise is this effort is only half of what's needed... The problem right now is that there's no demand side because there's no money to buy even the generics," Attaran warned. "These countries are deadly poor. They are dying by the millions."

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which was originally set up and funded by the G7 nations, says six billion dollars are urgently needed to help finance the fight against the disease this year alone.

"And we are calling for an additional six billion dollars in 2003-2004," said Richard Feachem of the Fund. "This is a last chance effort to stop the greatest epidemic that has affected the human species. Countries are shutting down because of this virus."

The panellists also faulted rich nations for not coming forth with the needed money - a small amount in relation to the size of the AIDS epidemic and, for example, the war on Iraq which could cost around two billion dollars.

"If I were an aid donor sitting in Washington, or Canada or Japan, I'd be laughing because I'd be looking at how much anxiety there is in the non-profit sector, the charities and so on, over treating AIDS and I have done nothing, nobody has challenged me and I am getting away with it," commented Attaran.