[e-drug] Global Fund Opens Way to Generics

[e-drug@usa.healthnet.org]

E-DRUG: Global Fund Opens Way to Generics
------------------------------------------------
[Good news from the NY Times re the Global Fund: generic ARVs can be bought
if good quality.
Please note that the report is inaccurate if it wants to imply that TRIPS
is "international law". TRIPS is an agreement between WTO member states.
Patents are only national, and not international.
The Global Fund probably meant that countries which have to be TRIPS
compliant should not breach that agreement. However, most  developing
countries have till 2005 or 2016 to become TRIPS compliant, and are thus
not yet bound by TRIPS.  Copied as fair use from
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/16/health/policy/16AIDS.html
WB]

October 16, 2002

U.N. Disease Fund Opens Way to Generics
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

$2 billion global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria will
encourage poor countries to buy cheap generic medicines instead of
expensive brand-name ones, its director said yesterday.

The decision opens the way for makers of generic drugs in India, Brazil and
other countries to sell far more of their products in the third world,
undercutting the prices of major American and European drug makers.

"It's a big step forward," said Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem, executive
director of the United Nations-initiated program, the Global Fund to Fight
Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, explaining that it would let the fund's
money go further.

The fund will require countries applying for grants to do three things:

- Buy the lowest-price drug.
- Buy only drugs of guaranteed quality.
- Comply with international law and their own national laws.

Any drug on the World Health Organization's new list of approved drugs and
drugmakers qualifies automatically, said Anil Soni, a fund official. That
list, begun in March, includes drugs from companies like India's Cipla that
copy products patented in the West, which is legal under Indian law.

The fund was started last year with great fanfare by the United Nations
secretary general, Kofi Annan, in the hope that it would become the
repository for Western donations of $7 billion to $10 billion a year toward
fighting disease.

Thus far, Dr. Feachem said, it has received worthy requests from poor
countries totaling about $8 billion, but has received only $2.1 billion in
pledges. Advocates for the poor have been particularly bitter that the
United States has not donated more. President Bush's first pledge was $200
million.

Of the 30 million people with the AIDS virus in Africa, it is estimated
that
only 30,000 are getting the anti-retroviral drugs that are routinely
prescribed for American and European AIDS patients.

But there was positive reaction to Mr. Feachem's announcement, including a
surprising endorsement from the pharmaceutical industry's trade group.

Shannon Herzfeld, a spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America, said the group supported the fund's decision. "We
believe strongly that there is room for bona fide generics as long as they
are of high quality."

William F. Haddad, a generics maker who helped create the cheaper off-brand
industry in the United States, called the fund's decision "a big victory."

He contended that small countries in Africa, Latin America and Eastern
Europe are afraid that the United States will punish them if they try to
import generic medicines. "The U.S. is like an octopus," he said. "It's
continually threatening to do `something' to countries who buy from
generics
makers."

Mr. Haddad could not say which American officials had done so. In the early
days of the Clinton administration, the Commerce Department aggressively
threatened countries that ignored American patents with trade sanctions,
but
it changed its policy in December 1999 in the face of the AIDS epidemic.
The
Bush administration has said it would continue the latter policy.

A senior state department official who is familiar with the Global Fund
disputed Mr. Haddad's argument, saying: "From my vantage point, there has
been no such pressure. We've been nothing but supportive of countries who
submit applications to the Global Fund."

The United States supports the right of poor countries to buy generic drugs
with Global Fund money, the official said. "We don't have a bias for or
against generics," he said, "as long as they aren't deprived of the
opportunity of choosing brand names."



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