E-drug: Press Release: Act-Up Action Against Pfizer
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Press release 96 10/05/2000
Pfizer : Hard-Ons for the North, Die-Outs for the South
Today May 10, 2000, about thirty Act Up-Paris activists jammed Pfizer's
world Viagra plant in Touraine, France, into a standstill. This action
means to denounce the company's pricing policy, which is directly
responsible for the death of thousands of People With AIDS living in
developing countries.
On March 13, 2000, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African
coalition of People With AIDS, officially asked Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to
dramatically reduce the price of its AIDS drug fluconazole, or else to
grant TAC a voluntary license to manufacture a cheaper, generic version of
it.
In South Africa about 4.5 million people are living with HIV ; more than
100,000 succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in 1999. Fluconazole
(brand-names Diflucan or Triflucan) is a drug which can cure two of the
most frequent opportunistic infections : cryptococcal meningitis, and
thrush. Survival prognosis for untreated meningitis is less than four weeks
(UNAIDS).
Fluconazole is sold under patent in South Africa at a wholesale price of
R57 (US$9) per 200 mg capsule to the private sector and around R37 (US$6)
to public services. The annual cost of the treatment for preventing
meningitis amounts to R20,000 per person per year (US$3,160) - leaving
aside all other associated medical cost (MSF). It is blantanly unaffordable
for most people
Generic versions of fluconazole are available from India at R7.50 and from
Thailand at R2.98, which represent 5 to 10% of Pfizer's price in SA. In
these countries Pfizer's patent isn't being enforced and the drug is made
by generic drug manufacturers. It is, however, illegal right now for any
generic maker to sell the drug elsewhere. Still, as Pfizer's drug is still
under patent protection in South Africa , at the present time there is no
generic fluconazole available there, and the company enjoys a perfect
monopoly over the market.
Under international pressure, last April 3rd, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals
announced that it would start supplying Diflucan/Fluconazole to all South
Africans who cannot afford the drug and suffer from cryptococcal
meningitis. This shows that the time is over when drug companies could
content themselves with looking the other way while their pricing policy
kills thousands. By finally agreeing to donating the drug, Pfizer
recognizes its responsability for the death of non-treated people. It also
shows that drug companies are able to reduce prices dramatically ; they can
even afford to give drugs away for free without endangering profits. This
is possible because Pfizer, like all proprietray drug
companies, reaps its considerable profits from the developed countries'
market alone. Besides, Pfizer sold more than US$1.2 bn worth of Diflucan
last year, and the drug is over ten years old.
But still a donation is not a global long-term solution for treating People
With AIDS living in destitute countries. It only serves the cynical purpose
of making treatment-access depend on a mutinational's good will. Pfizer has
incidentally still not clearly stated how many people would have access to
its Diflucan donations exactly, nor for how long, nor on which conditions.
This announcement was above all a means for the company to make more time,
defuse international pressure, and avoid addressing the real issues.
In Nicaragua, where there is no generic fluconazole either, the only
available drug, marketed by Pfizer, is priced at $16 per 150 mg capsule.
Thousands of People With AIDS there have no access to the treatment, and
still, when they were asked, Pfizer would not even consider donations or
price reductions. The government of Uganda - another heavy AIDS-burden
country - has not even been dignified by Pfizer with a reponse to its
donation request.
Poor countries need more sustainable and constructive solutions than this
kind of opportunistic corporate charity. The only thing that Pfizer has
demonstrated with this donation announcement, is its cynicism and its
paranoia at the idea of losing monopoly over fluconazole in South Africa.
Yet again, profits are put ahead of people's lives. Act Up, along with many
other activist groups all over the world currently fighting this evil
trend, will not let Pfizer get away with this.
Pfizer must publicly commit to assuring sustainable access to fluconazole
for all People With AIDS living in poor countries. In South Africa but also
everywhere that it is necessary, Pfizer must dramatically reduce prices and
adapt to local purchasing power, or else accept for generics to be resorted
to.
Contacts Act Up-Paris : G. Krikorian ; Tel: 00 33 6 09 17 70 55
96 00 33 1 49 29 44 75.
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