GlaxoSmithKline aims to stop AIDS Profiteers
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by Dan Isaacs
BBC News 22/02/05
One of the world's largest manufacturers of HIV/Aids drugs has
launched an initiative to combat the smuggling of cheaper pills
- supplied to poorer African countries - back into Europe for
resale at far higher price.
The company, GlaxoSmithKline, is to alter the packaging and
change the colour of the pills, currently provided to developing
nations under a humanitarian agreement. It is estimated that
drugs companies are losing hundreds of millions of dollars each
year as a result of the diversion of their products in this way.
This is a very sensitive area for the big drug companies. They
want to maintain their profits, but have been put under tremen-
dous pressure to provide cheap anti-Aids drugs to the world's
poorest nations.
Illegal diversion
The result is that drugs supplied to Africa are now more than
thirty times cheaper than those sold in Europe; bringing these
medicines within the reach of millions of HIV-positive Africans
through their government's health care systems. But the wide
difference in price also means that there are big gains to be
made from illegally diverting these cheaper drugs back into
wealthier countries and re-selling them at a higher price.
GlaxoSmithKline believes that by coating the pills destined for
Africa in a red dye and adding new identification codes both
onto the pills and on the packaging, then this trade can be sub-
stantially reduced. The company says that it will then be possi-
ble to identify specific distributors in Africa who have re-sold
humanitarian drugs for profit, as well as those suppliers in
Europe that have also been involved in the trade.
Glaxo says distribution of the new-look drugs has already begun
and that their chemical content is identical to those currently
being sold in Europe.