E-DRUG: HIV and Hep C: Latin-American Forum on Access to Medicines
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Citizens, organizations and experts analyzed the current challenges to hep
C and HIV medicines access at the International Forum organized by
RedLAM[1]
<https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ftn1>\*
Citizens, NGOs, experts and national authorities of Latin-American
Countries exchanged ideas and strategic courses of action to boost Access
to medicines at the 'International Forum about Access to Medicines,
Intellectual Property and Local Production'
The event was held at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia auditorium
in Lima, Peru, with participation of representatives of NGOs from
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, members of the Health Ministry of
Ecuador, Peruvian professionals of varied disciplines, representatives of
Pharmaceutical Associations from Peru, as well as representatives from
local pharmaceutical companies and general public, whom actively joined the
debate.
After a brief introduction and welcome words by Lorena Di Giano, General
Coordinator of RedLAM, and by Dr. Carlos Cáceres, Director of the
University's Centro de Investigacion Interdisciplinaria en Sexualidad, Sida
y Sociedad, the first part of the forum began, centered on showing how
intellectual property represents a barrier to access to essential
medicines, specifically focused on the new treatments for hepatitis C.
The first speaker was Dr. Francisco Rossi, Executive Director of IFARMA
<http://web.ifarma.org/>
(RedLAM, Colombia)
who stated that the treatment for hepatitis C has become a clear and paradigmatic
example of the tension between the people's fundamental human rights and the
companies and corporations commercial rights, especially relevant to the region's
countries.
Multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Gilead Sciences
are looking to generate monopolies over drugs such as sofosbuvir, a new
Direct Action Antiviral that has been proved to potentially cure the
hepatitis C infection. Gilead has launched to the international market its
version of sofosbuvir at very high prices that make treatment unreachable
to people who need it.
Rossi also stressed that this situation takes place due to the speculative
nature of Gilead's business, especially with curative medicines, through
the request of patents that allow monopolies permitting the arbitrary
prices that favor their commercial interests. According to Rossi, there is,
however 'hope in our legal instruments available, such as patent
oppositions, compulsory licenses, local public production among others'.
In the same line, Lorena Di Giano (FGEP-RedLAM, Argentina) and Marcela
Vieira (ABIA
<http://www.abia.org.br/vs/inicio.aspx>
-RedLAM, Brasil)
introduced the cases of sofosbuvir's patent oppositions in Argentina and
Brazil, done jointly last May with organizations from Ukraine and Russia to
prevent Gilead's patents system abuse and allow sofosbuvir to reach every
person who needs it. Besides stressing the failure to fulfill legal
requirements such as lack of novelty and use of public knowledge already
available, that exclude the possibility to obtain a patent, Di Giano
declared that 'it is essential that TRIPs health safeguards are used as
valid instruments to promote access'. Her speech also alerted about the
terrible consequences that the signing of free trade agreements such as the
Trans Pacific Partnership may have for the region's countries, since it
could be a vehicle for the U.S. to remove most public health safeguards
from local laws.
The open discussion about oppositions was complemented with the
participation of Luis Alberto Kanashiro (Peru's Dean) and Berenice
Pinto (Asociacion de Industrias Farmaceuticas Nacionales
<http://www.adifan.org.pe/>
de Peru). Kanashiro was lauded when declaring that 'if all pharmaceutical
professional's associations would work along civil society, we would have
better chances to fight monopolies'.
Closing the first part of the Forum,Javier Llamoza, RedLAM, Peru stated: 'It is
unacceptable that a single human being dies knowing there is a cure for his
or her disease. Society must rise and claim for the solution to be
accessible to all'
The states' part on the play: antiretroviral local production
This second part of the Forum added the public and local production of
medicines to the discussion. Mónica Di Giano (FGEP-RedLAM, Argentina) explained
that 39 out of the 250 national labs that control 58% of the total production in Argentina
are public and that the current legislative and political context favours this tendency
by aiming to recover the national sovereignty in health issues. This is key to improve a
situation that was worsened during the nineties, when the national patents law was passed.
After the Argentine case, Veronica Espinosa, Ecuador's Deputy Secretary of
Health, presented the experience on this country, where since 2008 the
constitution guarantees fair and equitable access to health.
Espinosa remarked that since the creation of ENFARMA in 2009, Ecuador develops,
produces and commercializes medicines at socially fair prices, focused on the society's
benefit by reducing costs, producing generic versions and promoting
investigation and development. In her exposition, Espinosa showed that
'political will to reject patents or allowing obligatory licenses is not enough: it is
necessary that public production is guaranteed to complement this strategy'
Brazil's case was presented by Pedro Villardi (ABIA-RedLAM, Brasil), who
introduced the history and part that public labs have had in that country.
By way of civil society pressure and mobilization, Brazil created its free
and universal ARVS distribution program in the nineties. This generated a
great boost to the public lab's key role in medicine production. Villardi
also mentioned the obligatory license issued in 2007 for the drug efavirenz
as a positive precedent that allowed the brazilian state the saving of U$S
104 million in five years. He also expressed that a fair price is
established taking production costs and not speculative investigation and
development costs as a reference. In this line, Jose MarÃa Di Bello
(FGEP-RedLAM), the panel's moderator, stated that 'a fair price is one
that adjusted to production costs can be paid to guarantee all the peoples'
health, and not the abusive figures demanded by the multinational
pharmaceutical corporations'.
The last presentation, in charge of Miguel Cortez Gamba (IFARMA-RedLAM,
Colombia) showed the alternative way that pharmaceutical compounds open to
avoid the patent's barriers. Cortez reminded that according to ADPIC's
article 30 on the exceptions to exclusive rights and in relation to
individual prescriptions, patents laws usually exclude from their reach
medicines prepared for an individual case in a drugstore or by a medicine
professional.
According to Dr. Carlos Correa: 'This exclusion, although not
specifically mentioned, can be considered to be allowed by article 30 of the
agreement on ADPIC.[2]
<https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ftn2>
Cortez showed that patents only apply over industrial production, and since
pharmaceutical compounding are 'craftworks' prescribed by a doctor to a
particular patient, they allow the manufacturing of necessary medicines
(even at a national scale, as showed in the case of Spain, where more than
8 million compound recipes are prescribed per year) without depending on
transnational monopolies.
The Forum was closed with farewell words from AIS Peru's President Roberto
López Linares, who stressed to the audience that medicines are always to be
considered social goods, and claiming for an end to all medicines' access
barriers.
'Peoples' health cannot depend on economic speculation and greed for profit:
the citizens' lives must prevail over the pharmaceutical corporations
abusive interests.'
OUR HEALTH IS NOT FOR SALE!
To access agenda, presentations and report please visit:
Informe Foro Acceso a Medicamentos
<http://www.redlam.org/foro-internacional-acceso-a-medicamentos-y-propiedad-intelectual-hepatitis-c-y-vih/>
(Spanish)
Access to Medicines Forum Report
<http://www.redlam.org/international-forum-access-to-hiv-and-hepatitis-c-medicines/>
(English)
Contact:
Lorena Di Giano loredigiano@gmail.com
José MarÃa Di Bello jose.dibello@gmail.com
Nicolás Miranda comunicacionfgep@gmail.com
[1] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ftnref1>Red Latinoamericana
por el Acceso a Medicamentos <http://www.redlam.org/>www\.redlam\.org
[2] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ftnref2>\(CORREA, Carlos,
144, Propiedad intelectual y salud pública, 2006, capitulo: excepciones a
los derechos exclusivos.
Maria Lorena Di Giano
Directora Ejecutiva FGEP
Fundacion Grupo Efecto Positivo
Buenos Aires- Mar del Plata- Argentina
Coordinadora General RedLAM
Red Latinoamericana por el Acceso a Medicamentos
www.redlam.org
Lorena Di Giano <lorenadigiano@gmail.com>