EMSIE FERREIRA, Pretoria | Sunday
THE South African government and 39 international pharmaceutical companies this week resume a landmark court battle about how far a developing country can go to force down the price of medicines.
The case is being hailed by activists worldwide as the one that will determine what matters more – the companies’ profits or the lives of the sick and dying in poor nations, and has at its heart the high price of anti-Aids drugs.
The companies maintain a South African law they are disputing would put the very future of the pharmaceutical industry at risk by threatening profits that accrue from the protection of intellectual property rights and provide companies with the revenue to pioneer new drugs.
The case is taking place in the country which had the world’s highest number of HIV sufferers at the end of last year – 4.7 million, or one in every nine South Africans, according to government figures.
The pharmaceutical giants have for more than three years blocked the implementation of a South African law that would give the health minister near unfettered power to override patent rights to import, license and produce low-cost versions of brand-name drugs.
The decision by judge Bernard Ngoepe on the second day of the trial to hear a submission by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a fierce critic of the administration’s refusal to provide anti-retroviral drugs in the public health system, prompted the postponement of the case for five weeks to give the companies time to prepare a response to the TAC’s arguments.
The companies’ lawyers said they would show that they already offer anti-Aids drugs at reduced cost or free and that there was no justification “for further invading patent prices.”
To this end the firms – among them multinationals Boehringer-Ingelheim, Glaxo Wellcome, Merck and Roche – last week submitted an affidavit to the court in which they accuse the government of ignoring offers of cheaper drugs.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has denied in parliament that she had received such offers. She has refused to say whether government would, if it were to win the case, provide anti-retroviral drugs freely, citing safety and logistical concerns. – AFP
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