FRIDAY 6.00PM:
THE ‘drugs bill’ controversy took a new twist on Friday, with the revelation that a patents advisory committee to the department of trade and industry warned that the proposed legislation contravenes both local and international patent law.
At a hearing by the social services committee of the National Council of Provinces, a memorandum was read out from Justice C Plewman, chairman of the committee, which said he and his deputy, lawyer Esme du Plessis, had recommended against both the earlier and later versions of the bill.
This opinion was made available both to the trade and industry and health departments, neither of which passed it on to parliament. Trade and Industry minister Alex Erwin has been one of the strongest supporters of the bill, arguing that the alleged patent breach is a “matter of interpretation”.
NP health spokesman Dr Kobus Gous accused Health Minister Dr Nkosazana Zuma of “withholding vital information” from the National Assembly’s health committee in her “quest to bulldoze through” the controversial medicines control legislation.
The Democratic Party’s Mike Ellis called for the bill to be withdrawn: “The minister has deliberately misled the committee and Parliament. It would not be the first time she has done it. This latest incident calls her integrity into question.”
Zuma’s drug bill, designed to lower the cost of drugs to poorer patients, allows the government to permit parallel importing of drugs in certain cases, which drug companies consider a violation of their patent rights.
The US government, under pressure from the powerful pharmaceuticals lobby, has threatened to take the case to the World Trade Organisation. But a panel of experts debating the issue at the Wits Business School this week agreed that the issue falls into a grey area, and the WTO is unlikely to act against SA.