Illegal sales: Aids drugs supplied to Africa at cut rates have been illegally resold in Europe, threatening to undermine a system of preferential medicine pricing for poor countries, GlaxoSmithKline said on Thursday.
The Dutch government has recalled a quantity of the company’s Combivir and Epivir Aids drugs after uncovering the resale of more than 35 000 packets of pills with a market value of close to ¬15-million (about R153-million) in The Netherlands and Germany.
The incident highlights the difficulty of preventing pharmaceuticals from flowing back into lucrative Western markets, an illegal trade that drug-makers claim would jeopardise future research into new medicines.
Partnership: A R2,4-million grant to the universities of Natal and the Transkei will boost research into the link between post-delivery morbidity and HIV/Aids, a pharmaceutical company said on Wednesday.
The grant is part of the Secure the Future programme run by Bristol-Myers Squibb. The company has committed $115-million to finding solutions to HIV/Aids in sub-Saharan Africa.
The money was handed over at a function in Durban this week. It will be used to measure the role of certain types of antibiotics in reducing the prevalence of post-delivery morbidity in HIV-positive and HIV-negative women.
The study will be conducted at the King Edward VIII hospital in Durban and at the Umtata hospital.
Source: Reuters