GSK denies milking Africa

2002-07-04 20:10

Nairobi - British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), reeling under accusations of capital flight, on Thursday denied allegations of reaping huge profits from Africa and failing to deliver essential medicine to the continent.

"The (pharmaceutical) industry has been accused of making huge profits in Africa. This is quite frankly not true... and it is not to say GSK does not turn a profit, nor should we be expected to transform ourselves into some sort of a charitable organisation," GSK general manager Andrew Bulloch said.

"Glaxo SmithKline would find ways of sustaining itself during these difficult times, since Kenya would be poorer without the company," Bulloch told doctors at the inauguration of Kenya Medical Association Resource Centre.

Bulloch said GSK, whose work in Africa went beyond purely commercial motivations, had made efforts to broaden the access of medicine in Africa.

Bulloch said the African society needed to understand that it was the research industry that would be coming forward with new treatments for Aids.

Sued for antitrust violations

"Companies like GSK need to be seen as partners, not adversaries. It is not good enough for all the blames, which all of us agree is an intolerable situation, to be heaped upon the research-based pharmaceutical industry," Bulloch said.

GSK is a holder of patent rights to import antiretroviral drugs here and has repeatedly come under severe criticism from Kenyans across the board for declining to import them because it will not recover its capital.

A leading United States non-governmental organisation, Aids Healthcare Foundation, said on Monday that it had filed a suit against GSK for alleged antitrust violations.

The group said its federal lawsuit, filed in the US Federal Court for the district of California, aimed to break GSK's hold on key Aids drugs in the US. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA