E-drug: Pharmaceutical firms attacked over drug patents (2)
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Campaigners urge world pact to make drugs for poor
By Robert Evans
Reuters. 22 May 2003
GENEVA, May 22 - Of some 1,400 new medicines marketed in the
last quarter century, a mere 16 were for malaria and other "poor
man's" diseases, charities said on Thursday. Tuberculosis and
diseases rife in the tropics, such as malaria and sleeping sickness,
kill 17 million people a year -- 97 percent of them in developing
countries, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
said.
It issued a report to help poorer governments and individuals
challenge pharmaceutical patents held by multinational drug
companies.
Key groups campaigning for cheaper drugs for poorer countries
also called for a global pact to boost research into treatment for
diseases devastating less developed economies.
The moves were aimed at delegates to the annual assembly of the
192-nation World Health Organisation (WHO), which next week
discusses the highly charged issue of drug research, patents and
public health.
"What we want to see is an international convention on essential
health research and development that is health-driven and not
profit-driven," MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, policy director
Ellen 't Hoen told a news conference.
She cited the new-medicine figures which were produced by MSF
-- which is also leading a drive to get cheaper AIDS medicines to
the poor -- and fellow activist groups Oxfam and Health Action
International.
"Research and development in these areas has practically ground
to a standstill...The market fails to deliver products that meet health
needs," 't Hoen said.
Campaigners say even AIDS research is aimed primarily at
combating the disease in richer states, where sufferers or their
governments can afford to pay much more for treatment.
Under a WHO convention, the three groups say, governments
would agree on priorities for research, commit to fund it through
public-sector involvement, and set up mechanisms for exchanging
research results and manufacturing technology.
Big pharmaceutical firms say they need to make profits to fund
research, and the patent system ensures they can do this.
't Hoen said the MSF report, "Drug Patents Under the Spotlight",
would help health ministries and aid groups avoid "being bullied
into buying more expensive drugs when it is not necessary".
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