Generic Aids drugs 'on the way'

The South African government may soon change its position over patented Aids drugs and force pharmaceutical companies to hand over patents to others, IBA delegates heard.

Jonathan Berger of the Johannesburg-based Aids Law Project said that a process under way at the National Economic Development and Labour Council - a statutory body with power to broker deals across a range of social and economic issues - was working on a national agreement for treatment of the Aids epidemic in South Africa.

He said the government has never rejected the council's recommendations, one of which is likely to be that it invokes its never-used power under the South African Patents Act to issue compulsory licences of drugs.

While bringing down the cost was only part of the problem, Mr Berger said that competition arising from giving licences to generic drug manufacturers could force down prices by as much as 75%.

He added that, in a separate move, the project has made a complaint to the South African competition authorities about the alleged excessive pricing of Aids drugs.

Robert Krupka, a partner at US firm Kirkland & Ellis, told the conference session - which was looking at whether patent protection pushed up the costs of drugs and reduced their availability - that when, in the aftermath of 11 September terrorist attacks, the US government threatened to expropriate the anthrax vaccine, it ended up negotiating an 'extraordinarily favourable' deal with the manufacturers instead.

The Aids Law Project is working as part of the treatment action campaign, which aims to facilitate the provision of treatment, and ensure the development and implementation of a public sector national HIV/Aids treatment plan.

Mr Berger said there needed to be a broader human rights framework for intellectual property rights.

The essential quid pro quo of the state-sponsored guarantee of market exclusivity 'is that the patent benefits the public', he said.

The constitutional rights to life, to have dignity respected and protected, and to have access to healthcare, should form the backdrop to intellectual property, Mr Berger added.