quarta-feira, março 23, 2005
Brasil quer avançar com produção de mais genéricos
Brazil Takes Step Toward Breaking AIDS Patents
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) Mar 16
Brazil has moved a step closer to breaking AIDS drug patents by asking U.S. companies for the right to copy four products so the country can slash health costs, the government said on Tuesday. Brazil requested Merck & Co. Inc., Abbot Laboratories Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc. to grant "voluntary licensing" of drug technology so it can keep its much-copied AIDS program afloat, the health ministry said.
Brazil imports the four drugs used in its free, combination antiretroviral drug treatment. It wants to make copies and pay royalties. The products in question are Merck's efavirenz, Abbott's lopinavir and ritonavir, and Gilead's tenofovir.
"We expect to cut by half what we currently pay," the ministry's health control secretary, Jarbas Barbosa, said in a statement on the request sent on Monday. Brazil has often threatened to break drug patents unless foreign manufacturers slash costs. Latin America's largest country now says it can no longer afford to import AIDS drugs and must become self-sufficient.
Under Brazilian law, and based on World Trade Organization rules, a nation can break drug patents by applying a "compulsory license" on a product if it is a case of national emergency or national interest. That would mean Brazil would begin domestic manufacture of products without permission. It would still pay royalties. "[U.S. companies] know we are talking seriously of applying a compulsory license," Barbosa said. Company officials in Brazil and the United States were not immediately available for comment.
In the 1990s experts expected more than 1 million Brazilians to develop AIDS by 2000. Brazil began free access to its antiretroviral combination therapy in 1997 and has kept the number of people living with HIV at around 600,000. The government expects to increase the number of Brazilians on AIDS drugs to 180,000 in 2005 from 150,000 in 2004.
The cost of providing foreign imports of antiretroviral drugs in the combination has skyrocketed from 50% of the program's budget in 1998 to an estimated 85% in 2005. Brazil makes 8 of the 16 drugs in the combination therapy and hopes to begin manufacture of more in the first half of 2005. The country lacks pharmaceutical industry technology and capacity to manufacture all 16 drugs.
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) Mar 16
Brazil has moved a step closer to breaking AIDS drug patents by asking U.S. companies for the right to copy four products so the country can slash health costs, the government said on Tuesday. Brazil requested Merck & Co. Inc., Abbot Laboratories Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc. to grant "voluntary licensing" of drug technology so it can keep its much-copied AIDS program afloat, the health ministry said.
Brazil imports the four drugs used in its free, combination antiretroviral drug treatment. It wants to make copies and pay royalties. The products in question are Merck's efavirenz, Abbott's lopinavir and ritonavir, and Gilead's tenofovir.
"We expect to cut by half what we currently pay," the ministry's health control secretary, Jarbas Barbosa, said in a statement on the request sent on Monday. Brazil has often threatened to break drug patents unless foreign manufacturers slash costs. Latin America's largest country now says it can no longer afford to import AIDS drugs and must become self-sufficient.
Under Brazilian law, and based on World Trade Organization rules, a nation can break drug patents by applying a "compulsory license" on a product if it is a case of national emergency or national interest. That would mean Brazil would begin domestic manufacture of products without permission. It would still pay royalties. "[U.S. companies] know we are talking seriously of applying a compulsory license," Barbosa said. Company officials in Brazil and the United States were not immediately available for comment.
In the 1990s experts expected more than 1 million Brazilians to develop AIDS by 2000. Brazil began free access to its antiretroviral combination therapy in 1997 and has kept the number of people living with HIV at around 600,000. The government expects to increase the number of Brazilians on AIDS drugs to 180,000 in 2005 from 150,000 in 2004.
The cost of providing foreign imports of antiretroviral drugs in the combination has skyrocketed from 50% of the program's budget in 1998 to an estimated 85% in 2005. Brazil makes 8 of the 16 drugs in the combination therapy and hopes to begin manufacture of more in the first half of 2005. The country lacks pharmaceutical industry technology and capacity to manufacture all 16 drugs.
