The South African arm of drugs giant Boehringer Ingelheim said on Tuesday it had granted a licence to a South African pharmaceutical firm to allow it to produce, distribute and sell the antiretroviral drug nevirapine.
Boehringer is one of two international drugmakers being targeted by South African activists, who are urging the firms to slash prices on key Aids drugs the campaigners say are out of reach for the millions of poor people infected with the disease.
South Africa has more people living with HIV-Aids than any other in the world, with one in nine of the 43-million population affected.
Boehringer Ingelheim South Africa said its granting of the voluntary licence to Aspen Pharmacare was a further gesture of its commitment to combating HIV-Aids.
”In view of the devastating effect of the Aids pandemic on our country, we have already reduced prices for Viramune (nevirapine) to a fraction of those in Europe and the United States,” the company said in a statement.
It said it also offered the product, marketed by Boehringer worldwide as Viramune, free of charge to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease in developing countries.
A coalition of Aids activists and union leaders lodged a complaint with South Africa’s competition watchdog against Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline Plc last month, accusing the firms of excessive pricing.
The coalition said combination drug therapy to combat Aids currently cost around R1 200 a month. Forty percent of working people in South Africa are estimated to earn under R1 000 a month. – Reuters