Financial Times ; 10-Jul-2000
Third World and drugs groups remain wary of each other
By DAVID PILLING
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MSF [Medecins Sans Frontieres] thinks drug industry donations, or even substantial price cuts, are not the answer. Instead, it says countries should emulate Brazil by mass-producing generic drugs. If that were done globally, it calculates the price of anti-retroviral treatment could be slashed to $200 a year against the $2,250 implied by the 85 per cent price cut offer.
The industry would oppose any such attempt to ride roughshod over its patents. As well as fearing a flowback of cheap drugs into western markets, it is fiercely protective of the principle of intellectual property. Without the prospect of profit, it says, there would be no investment in new medicines.
There is one example where the impasse has been breached. That is vaccines. A polio vaccine, for example, is sold for several dollars in the US but only a few cents in the developing world.
Yesterday, the International Aids Vaccine Initiative was arguing that this principle of "tiered pricing" could be extended to all medicines. "Richer countries must accept that they will pay prices high enough to cover the costs of research while the poorest countries pay only a little over the cost of manufacture."
Without radical rethinking, one delegate argued yesterday, the debate on drug pricing would remain unimportant for most Aids patients. Of far greater practical concern would be the price of a coffin.
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