E-drug: Sub-Saharan ARV patents by population and income
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Where are the sub-Saharan patents filed, in terms of population,
infection rates and incomes?
Draft October 6, 2001
James Love (with Michael Palmedo)
This is a brief note regarding where ARV patents are in Sub-
Saharan Africa, reporting some of the data that Michael Palmedo
and I are looking at. (It hasn't gone through a final fact check.) We
spent some time with the August 2001 PhRMA patent survey, and
found a few countries left off my earlier tally, which should be fixed
here. The data below include 46 of the 47 Sub-Saharan Countries
that were included in the August 2001 PhRMA survey.[1] Of these
countries, 29 have granted at least one patent for an ARV drug.
There are 142 products under patents in the 29 that have granted
patents on ARV products. A number of the countries on the PhRMA
survey are very small, several with populations under 1 million.
What I have done below is to show where ARV patents have been
filed, in terms of four measures: population, number of persons
living with HIV, GDP, and patient income. The proxy for patient
income is just the number of patients multiplied by the country per
capita income. I'm happy to look at better ways of looking at this if
people have suggestions.
If you spend time with the data, what emerges is the concentration
of patents in the countries with the largest markets, no matter how
this is defined. Here are a few points:
* The 29 countries that issue patents on ARV drugs have 71
percent of the population, and 72 percent of the HIV+ patients in
the survey.
* The 11 countries that have patents on six or more ARV
products have 46 percent of the HIV patients.
* 41 percent of the GDP for the countries is in one country, the
Republic of South Africa, which has 15 products under patent.
* 68 percent of the GDP for the group is in countries that issue
patents on 4 or more ARV products that are essential for the lowest
cost HAART regimes.
* If one look at the combination of infections rates and incomes
(per capita income times infected persons), 64 percent is in South
Africa, 82 percent is in countries with 6 or more ARV products
under patent, and 93 percent is in countries that have issued at
least one product under patent (evidence of a patent system for
pharmaceuticals). Only 7 percent of the patient income is in
countries without patents.
Here are the cumulative percentages.
Jamie
Table 1
Where are the patented AV products?
45 Sub-Saharan Countries
(cumulative percentages)
Number of
Patented Number of HIV+ Patient
Products Countries Pop Patients GDP Income
15 1 7% 17% 41% 64%
8+ 2 9% 23% 43% 68%
7+ 6 19% 39% 50% 74%
6+ 11 25% 46% 56% 82%
5+ 12 25% 46% 57% 82%
4+ 23 39% 53% 68% 85%
3+ 24 42% 57% 71% 88%
2+ 28 71% 72% 87% 93%
1+ 29 71% 72% 87% 93%
0+ 45 100% 100% 100% 100%
[1] I was not able to get much data on Somalia.
Concluding remarks.
If the generic firms are going to have much of a chance to
develop efficient scale of production, they will have to penetrate the
most important markets, including especially South Africa, but also
many of the countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda,
Botswana, Ghana and others have high levels of patent protection
for ARV drugs.
Patents Country Population HIV+ GDP/Pop
15 South Africa 39,796 4,200,000 3170
8 Zimbabwe 11,509 1,500,000 530
7 Gambia 1,266 13,000 330
7 Kenya 29,507 2,100,000 360
7 Malawi 10,674 800,000 240
7 Uganda 21,209 820,000 320
6 Botswana 1,592 290,000 3240
6 Ghana 19,699 340,000 390
6 Lesotho 2,108 240,000 550
6 Swaziland 981 130,000 1360
6 Zambia 8,974 870,000 330
5 Gabon 1,196 23,000 3300
4 Benin 5,945 70,000 380
4 Burkina Faso 11,633 350,000 240
4 Cameroon 14,704 540,000 600
4 CAR 3,550 240,000 290
4 Chad 7,462 92,000 210
4 Congo 2,867 86,000 550
4 Guinea 7,375 55,000 510
4 Mali 10,900 100,000 240
4 Mauritania 2,602 6,600 390
4 Senegal 9,251 79,000 510
4 Togo 4,515 130,000 310
3 Ivory Coast 14,534 760,000 710
2 DRC (Zaire) 50,407 1,100,000 330
2 Equatorial Guin 442 1,100 1170
2 Niger 10,414 64,000 190
2 Nigeria 108,995 2,700,000 260
1 Guinea Bissau 1,188 14,000 160
0 Angola 12,497 160,000 270
0 Burundi 6,587 360,000 120
0 Comoro Islands 327 400 350
0 Dijbouti 600 37,000 790
0 Eritrea 3,717 49,000 200
0 Ethiopia 61,123 3,000,000 100
0 Madagascar 15,502 11,000 250
0 Mauritius 1,149 500 3550
0 Mozambique 19,222 1,200,000 220
0 Namibia 1,689 160,000 1890
0 Rwanda 7,238 400,000 250
0 Sao Tome 165 - 270
0 Seychelles 79 - 6540
0 Sierra Leon 4,721 68,000 130
0 Tanzania 36,232 1,300,000 260
0 Cape Verde 405 - 1330
Northern Africa and Somalia (not included)
0 Algeria 30,000 11,000 1550
0 Libya 5,400 1,400 no data
0 Morocco 28,200 5,000 1190
0 Somalia 9,718 No data no data
7 Sudan 36,080 140,000 330
0 Tunisia 9,500 2,200 2090
2 Egypt 62,400 8,100 1390
--
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org
1.202.380.3080 fax 1.202.234.5176
mailto:love@cptech.org
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