Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Pharmaceutical development is expected to customize drugs to address
both the genetic causes of particular diseases and the genetic profiles of
individuals. Among the early targets for new gene-based drug products
are asthma and Alzheimer's.
But what kind of social implications will the manufacture of geneti-
cally engineered drugs have? International control of currently available
drugs through patent laws gives us a preview of a likely scenario. Let us
focus on an ongoing controversy over AIDS drugs, involving developing
countries, transnational pharmaceutical companies, and the World Trade
Organization.
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According to international trade agreements, companies
can “segment” the market for their products, meaning that they can
charge different prices for the same product in different countries.
National governments, companies, or health care providers, however, are
not free to import drugs or their components from foreign countries
where prices may be lower. Although TRIPS provides that countries can
set intellectual property rights aside in the case of a “national emer-
gency,” efforts of the South African government to pass and act on a
1997 law permitting parallel importing to help address its AIDS crisis
were fought tooth and nail by a coalition of big pharmaceutical compa-
nies. They were led by the world's largest, Glaxo Smith Kline, based in
Britain with extensive U.S. holdings. In 1998, the Pharmaceutical Man-
ufacturers Association of South Africa brought a suit against the South
African government to the Pretoria High Court, claiming that the new
law violated their patent rights.
South Africa has over four million people affected with AIDS. The
normal cost of the triple-drug “AIDS cocktail” in the West is $10,000
to $15,000 per patient a year. The companies that hold the patents have
agreed to charge about $1,000 a year per patient in Africa, still far
beyond what countries on that continent could afford. As the Pretoria
trial was about to open, in March 2001, a local generic drugs manufac-
turer in India, Cipla Ltd., declared that it would provide AIDS drugs for
$350 a year to Doctors Without Borders, which runs forty AIDS clinics
in Africa, and that it would provide the drugs to government programs
for $600.
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A few days later, the British charity Oxfam began a campaign
to force multinational drug companies to cut prices in poor nations,
accusing transnationals of waging an “undeclared war” for profits by
