E-DRUG: GSK licenses ARVs to South African generic manufacturer
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[GSK is the second multinational to allow South Africa's generic
manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare to make generic copies of its antiretrovirals.
GSK will allow the local generic production of AZT and 3TC. Earlier, BMS
allowed Aspen Pharmacare to make generic ddI and d4T.
The GSK move shows a changed strategy among multinationals: rather than
selling
their own "A-brands" at strongly reduced costs (with the risk of parallel
export and spoiling their profitable USA and EU markets!), the multnationals
are now opting for the "controlled" release of African made generic copies.
These "B-drugs" will only be registerable in African countries; this will
avoid polluting their profits in USA and EU, while at the same time being
able to avoid compulsory licenses and warranted criticism by NGOs and
African governments that they are not making their ARVs available to the 25
million HIV+ Africans.
The definition of "NGO" needs to be clarified: recently Abbott allowed its
ARVs to be sold at discounted rates through all 2000 members of the Southern
African HIV Clinicians Society. This effectively (but not officially!) means
that most private sector patients have access to the cheaper drugs. It will
have to be seen whether GSK will also make its "cheaper" ARVs available to
the SA HIV Clinicians Society, and thereby effectively to South Africa's
private sector.
MSD, Boehringer Ingelheim and BMS made their ARVs already available to the
SA private sector some months ago.
Roche is now the only remaining company which has so far not yet made a
serious effort to lower its ARV prices in SA's private sector.
As Jamie love observed, USD 1.80 per day is more expensive than current
Indian generic prices. And why should AIDS patients pay a 30% tax for an HIV
fund??
Message copied from druginfo with thanks. NN]
Hi all
Here's the news of the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) voluntary license
issued to Aspen. Below it I have attached some comments from
Jamie Love of the US-based Consumer Project on Technology
(CPT), who has been working closely on seeking compulsory
licenses for anti-retroviral drugs in South Africa.
To my mind, the single greatest problem with the GSK license is
that Aspen is restricted to selling their version of Combivir to the
state or NGOs. As was pointed out by Dr Leon Regensberg (of
Medscheme's Aid for AIDS unit) in an interview quoted by the
Sunday Times, prices are important in the private sector as well.
Dropping the prices of such drugs will not only allow a greater
number of medical aid schemes to consider offering ARV cover (or
extending existing cover from double to triple drug regimens), but it
will also enable more of the larger employers whose workers are
not necessarily on medical aid schemes to offer such drugs from
occupational health facilities (e.g. those operated by mining
houses). As Jamie points out, if the State does not issue a tender
for the product, will it be worth Aspen's while to gear up to
manufacture the product? Additionally, how will an "NGO" be
defined in the license? The non-government, not-for-profit sector in
South Africa is small - e.g. the few church-owned hospitals still
operating.
regards
Andy