[procaare] Drugs Giants Close to HIV Giveaway for Third World

[ProCAARE <procaare@healthnet.org>]

Drugs giants close to HIV giveaway for Third World
By Abigail Townsend
Independent.co.uk, 05 October 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=449982
*****************

Seven of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and
Pfizer, are in talks with a leading international workers' organisation that could result
in HIV drugs being given free to some of the world's poorest nations.

The talks are being held between the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine
and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) and the main producers of HIV drugs. Besides Pfizer,
the world's largest drugs company, and Glaxo, they include US firms Bristol-Myers Squibb
and Abbott Laboratories; Swiss-based Merck and Roche; and the family-owned German business
Boehringer Ingelheim.

The talks got under way six months ago after a US-based consultant, acting for many of the
pharmaceutical companies, approached the ICEM about supplying HIV drugs to poor countries
where the virus is rampant. The aim is to provide individual patients with a tailor-made
cocktail of anti-retroviral HIV drugs, either for free or at affordable prices. The talks
are focused on sub-Saharan Africa and on those nations on the UN's list of the world's 49
least-developed countries.

The issue has been a controversial one, and many of the drug companies have been heavily
criticised over their apparent refusal to provide affordable treatments. But the ICEM's
general-secretary, Fred Higgs, is confident the talks will be successful.

"I'm optimistic that we will get a good result," said Mr Higgs. "I don't believe that, if
the companies are serious, it will take us any longer than the end of the first quarter of
next year for something beneficial to come out of it."

HIV and Aids have become a devastating problem for sub-Saharan Africa, where life
expectancy has dropped to below 40 in some countries. The main problem is that the drugs
are highly expensive and beyond the reach of the bulk of the population. HIV and Aids
treatments are also protected by long patents, meaning cheaper generic versions are not
currently available. Some pharmaceutical companies have stopped charging poorer countries
for a variety of treatments, but these are mainly for the symptoms of Aids and do not
include the crucial anti-retroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV, which can
significantly delay the onset of Aids. Many of the drugs companies do sell these at cheap
rates, but the ICEM is keen to bring the prices down further under a single agreement with
the producers.

The ICEM has 20 million members and 400 affiliated unions. It represents chemical workers
in the pharmaceutical industry and in sectors hard hit by HIV, such as energy and mining
in developing regions of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America. Said Mr Higgs: "We
feel the ICEM is strategically positioned to make a difference."

A spokesman for Glaxo, which has already cut the price it charges developing countries for
HIV drugs, said: "Our ambition is to provide our medicines on a not-for-cost basis both to
countries and to employers in those countries."

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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