The Threat of Affordable Medicines

Some of the larger developing countries, such as Thailand, India, Brazil, and Egypt have tried to do something about the high pricing of medicines.

India’s successful pharmaceutical industry, built on its patent laws that allow the development of very cheap generic drugs has been under threat from WTO property rights rules on patent protection, and pressure from the large pharmaceutical companies.

Brazil made a bold, but important move to produce AIDS drugs themselves, but at the same time, breaking the patent rights of Swiss pharmaceutical company, Roche.

Furthermore, a subsequent global AIDS fund set up by the U.N. also led to warnings of concern at things like patents, pricing and so on, which is captured well by Philippe Riviére, who is worth quoting at length:

"The Indian firm Cipla’s offer to MSF [Médecins Sans Frontiéres] to provide a cocktail of antiretrovirals for less than $350 a year (compared to the big boys' $10,000) resounded like a thunderbolt. "

— Philippe Riviére, Southern Sickness, Northern Medicine; Patently Wrong, Le Monde Diplomatique