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ay 5, 2007

WORLD BRIEFING | AMERICAS

Brazil Overrides Merck Patent on AIDS Drug

y CELIA W. DUGGER

he government, whose spending on AIDS drugs has skyrocketed as more patients have needed costly,

atented medicines, overrode the patent held by the pharmaceutical company Merck on the antiretroviral

rug efavirenz. The cost of Merck’s drugs has been $580 annually per patient. Brazil said the company had

ffered a 30 percent discount, but the government opted instead to buy the generic version from India for

ss than $170. For years, Brazil has considered exercising its rights under international trade rules to make

r import generic versions of patented AIDS drugs, but has until now backed away, fearing trade retaliation

om the United States. For more than a decade, Brazil has provided universal free access to drug treatment

r people with AIDS. Almost one in four patients in Brazil are now taking efavirenz. With the new price,

razil estimates that it will save $237 million on efavirenz by 2012 when the patent expires. Thailand, which

so has an ambitious AIDS treatment program, overrode Merck’s patent on the same drug in November.

Copyright 2007The New York Times Company

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Roche bows to Brazil on Aids drugSpecial report: Aids

Alex Bellos in Rio de Janeiro

The Guardian, Saturday 1 September 2001 11.31 BST

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The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche caved in to pressure from Brazil yesterday and

announced that it would reduce the price of an anti-Aids drug by 40%.

The Brazilian health secretary, Jose Serra, called it a victory for developing countries

against the unfair pricing of the drug multinationals.

Roche said it would sell nelfinavir at the price demanded by Brazil.

The decision came a week after Brazil aggressively raised the stakes in the long-running

prices battle by authorising its own laboratories to make much cheaper generic copies of

nelfinavir.

"Pharmaceutical companies have to realise that pricing should be different for

developing countries - Our resources are tight," Mr Serra said.

"This is a victory for sick people. Brazil is strengthened by the decision, because it is

working in the consumer's interest."

The Brazilian laboratory which developed a generic copy of nelfinavir will continue

researching the product, although its plans for production have been suspended.

"

August 23, 2001

Brazil Will Defy Patent on AIDS Drug Made by RocheBy JENNIFER L. RICH with MELODY PETERSEN

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, Aug. 22— After months of negotiations on price cuts ended in deadlock, Brazil said today that itwould break the patent on an AIDS drug produced by the Swiss drug giant Roche.

The nation's health minister, Jose Serra, said he had begun the process of issuing a license to produce nelfinavir, marketedRoche under the name Viracept. If Brazil goes through with its threat to issue what is often called a compulsory license,

would be the first time that the government of a poor country has decided to allow generic copies of a brand-name drug made without the permission of the company that owns the patent.

Viracept is one of the 12 drugs used in the so-called drug cocktail to treat AIDS. The Health Ministry said that the gover bought 82 million units of nelfinavir a year at a cost of $88 million. That accounts for 28 percent of what the governmentspends on the AIDS program in a year. In 2000, the Brazilian government spent $303 million in providing the AIDS cocto about 100,000 patients.

Roche had offered this year to cut the price of nelfinavir by 13 percent, but Brazil rejected that proposal as too low, and two sides had been negotiating. Mr. Serra said that talks broke off about two weeks ago.

Mr. Serra said that the government invoke d an article in the C onstitution that allows for the breaking of a patent in casesabusive prices.

''It's ridiculous that one of the 12 drugs in the cocktail would account for more than 25 percent of the cost,'' Mr. Serra sai''We spend more on that one drug than on all of the transplants performed in Brazil each year.''

The government said that domestic production of the drug would save the government 40 percent, a savings of $35 millioyear.

Spokesmen for Roche could not be reached for comment.

Earlier this year, the United States filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization about a different article of theBrazilian Constitution that allows for the breaking of patents in cases where a medication is not produced domestically. dropped the complaint.

Through the state-owned laboratory Far-Manguinhos, Brazil plans to begin offering the generic drug to patients by Febr2002.

The big drug companies have fought hard to avoid a situation like the one with Roche. In March, for instance, Merck &

.



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Defensive Drug Industry: Fueling Clash Over PatentsBy ANDREW POLLACK

Published: April 20, 2001

The big pharmaceutical companies march to the beat of a steady chant

-- that patent protection for drugs is essential for innovation. At the

urging of the drug companies, the United States government has

pressed many nations to honor patents on medications.

But now, it seems, the industry may have overplayed its hand. Drug

patents are under attack, blamed for high AIDS drug prices that deny

life-saving therapy to millions of people in developing countries. And

some analysts say the industry itself fueled the backlash by staunchly

defending its intellectual property in the face of a pandemic that could

claim more lives than the Black Death of the Middle Ages.

The latest clash over patents on AIDS drugs came to a boil in South

Africa yesterday, when 39 drug companies dropped a suit trying to block a law the

companies asserted would make it too easy for the government to abrogate their patents.

The debate has erupted in other countries as well. Brazil has threatened to grant licenses to

local manufacturers on patents for AIDS drugs held by Merck and Hoffman-La Roche. In

Thailand AIDS patients and activists are planning a legal challenge to the validity of al bb d

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