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'Glaxo fiddles while SA burns'
28/01/2003 20:46 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The South African Competition Commission confirmed on Tuesday that
it has received a complaint against pharmaceutical giant
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) seeking the British drug-maker to
allow licensing and manufacturing of life-saving Aids
drugs by generic makers.
The complaint has been brought by Aids Healthcare
Foundation (AHF), the largest Aids organisation in the
US, which operates the Ithembalabantu Clinic, a free Aids
treatment clinic in Durban in South Africa, in
conjunction with the Network of Aids Communities in South
Africa (NetCom SA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO)
based in the coastal city.
"Glaxo fiddles while South Africa burns," said Michael
Weinstein, AHF's President, from Washington, DC. "We are
filing this complaint against GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in
South Africa today to prevent the ongoing irreparable
harm that is occurring both in South Africa and
throughout the world.
"GSK's stranglehold on key Aids drug patents and
their unfettered monopoly pricing on these life-saving
medications means thousands of deaths daily. We are
asking the Competition Commission to require GSK to allow
licensing and manufacturing of these Aids drugs by
generic manufacturers in South Africa."
Glaxo's current worldwide market for its Aids
medications is estimated to be approximately $2bn
annually. GSK controls 40% of the lucrative US Aids drug
market.
"This Competition Complaint filed by Aids Healthcare
Foundation against GSK here in South Africa asserts that,
'Excessive pricing by respondents (GSK) creates barriers
to access and treatment for HIV/Aids'," said Ronald S
Katz, an attorney representing AHF in its related lawsuit
against GlaxoSmithKline in the US.
Katz, with US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, was
attending the Centenary Reunion of Rhodes Scholars in
Cape Town.
"As in our pending US court case, AHF wants to break
down these barriers - GSK's exorbitant, monopolistic
pricing on many medications that weren't even invented or
discovered by GSK scientists - to continue the
Foundation's commitment and mission to provide free
medical care and anti-retroviral treatment to South
Africans and others in need throughout the world," Katz
said.
AHF's Competition Commission complaint seeks to obtain
licensing and manufacturing concessions in South Africa
for some of the GSK Aids medications which Glaxo has the
exclusive right to market and sell here.
These include: zidovudine (AZT, branded as
Retrovir(R)), lamivudine (branded as 3TC(R)), Abacavir
(branded as Ziagen(R)), and Combivir and Trizivir -
Glaxo's best selling Aids drugs that are reformulations
of existing Aids drugs that offer patients the
convenience of two-in-one and three-in-one pill dosing
and may offer the greatest hope for successful treatment
in resource-poor settings throughout the world.
"It is unfortunate that these life-saving drugs are
only available to ten percent of the people who require
them," said Dr Elijah Paul Musoke, the physician for
AHF's Ithembalabantu Clinic in Durban in his official
affidavit accompanying the Competition Commission
Complaint.
"The reality of the situation is that many of us are
frustrated professionally, having to face death at a much
more regular frequency than ever before. One would hope
that there would never be a time when human life is of
less value than financial gain. Believe it or not, that
time is now and that place is here."
AHF's Ithembalabantu Clinic has close to one hundred
patients currently receiving life-saving ARV therapy with
an additional several hundred being monitored like
Makhathini. Approximately fifty people are on the waiting
list with Makhathini to begin anti-retroviral therapy.
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