Brazil may 'win Aids struggle'
2005-07-05 20:12
Sao Paulo - Aids activists and humanitarian groups are praising Brazil for taking the first step to break the disease's drug patent and produce copycat versions, a decision they hope leads to massive exports to other poor countries devastated by it.
But, property rights advocates and the pharmaceutical industry were equating the nation's high-stakes move against United States-based Abbott Laboratories Inc as government-sanctioned piracy of intellectual property driven by greed.
Brazil had repeatedly forced Aids drugs manufacturers to reduce prices by issuing threats to break patents over the past several years, but made an unprecedented legal decision last month after it didn't get as much of a price cut it wanted from Abbott on its Kaletra pill.
Latin America's largest country declared the outcome a public health crisis for its world-renowned free treatment programme, and would use a World Trade Organisation process to break the patent and clone Kaletra - unless Abbott gave a steep discount by July 6 or lets Brazil make generic versions of the drug.
Ensuring sustainability for treatment
Michael Bailey, a senior policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "The impact of breaking the patent would be enormous.
"If a major country such as Brazil goes through with this, not only will it help ensure sustainability of their excellent treatment programme, it will set a hugely important precedent for other countries."
Experts said poor countries without drug industries could take steps to authorise imports from Brazil.
Developing countries with robust generic drug production capacity - like India and China - could be tempted to follow Brazil's example, creating a bigger threat to the global reach of multinational pharmaceutical companies.
Gary Hufbauer, an economist and trade expert with the Washington-based Institute for International Economics, said: "The biggest result, I suspect, will be enormous pressure within India to do the same. That would be quite a twosome."
'Stealing intellectual property right'
Critics contended Brazil, a country where everything from illegally copied DVDs to high-fashion clothing was for sale at sidewalk stalls in cities small and large, was using sympathy for Aids victims to set its sights on robbing profits from big pharmaceutical companies and gave them to smaller Brazilian generic drug makers.
Robert Goldberg, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, said: "This is about stealing our intellectual property right and left and we're going to have to do something about it.
"If this was Microsoft's patents, there would be a firestorm."
Brazil's move toward breaking the patent came months before the United States would decide whether Brazil had done enough to crack down on copyright piracy and deserved to continue participating in a generalised system of preferences.
- AP