|
The Brazilian government filed a request to break the patent of the drug, Kaletra, used in the treatment of AIDS and currently imported from the American pharmaceutical company, Abbott Laboratories.
The drug, which is composed of the active ingredients, "Ritonavir" and "Lopinavir," is used in all phases of AIDS treatment.
With this decision, the Brazilian government laboratory, Farmanguinhos, part of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, will produce the generic equivalent composed of the two active ingredients.
The decree in which the government declares the anti-retroviral substance a medication in the public interest and announces its mandatory licensing was published Saturday (25) in a special edition of the Federal Government Register (Diário Oficial da União).
Abbott Laboratories has ten days to challenge the Brazilian government's decision. The Minister of Health, Humberto Costa, said that Brazil's decision to adopt mandatory licensing, breaking the Kaletra patent, will save the country US$ 54.4 million (R$ 130 million) each year. The Farmanguinhos laboratory will only make the generic drug available commercially after a year of testing.
Kaletra will only enter the international public domain in 2012. Costa emphasized that Brazil has the backing of international law to break the patent (which represents a company's property rights to scientific discoveries).
According to the Minister, the World Trade Organization's (WTO) intellectual property agreement permits any country to make use of a drug patent without the owner's consent under circumstances that are urgent and in the public interest.
Moreover, the 2001 Doha Declaration recognizes that the international patent agreement cannot supersede public health interests. Costa emphasized that patent-breaking can always be resorted to when the drug will be distributed for free, and Brazil will not export the generic form of Kaletra, nor will what Farmanguinhos produces be sold.
"This is the first time a drug patent is broken in Brazil. We are not committing a breach of contract in an international agreement," Costa affirmed.
The Minister added that the contract with Abbott to buy Kaletra runs through May, 2006.
"We did not violate the contract, we shall continue making payments, and the laboratory is not prohibited from selling Kaletra in Brazil. Abbott can even participate in government bidding processes, and it will win, if the price is suitable," the Minister said.
Kaletra currently costs US$ 1.17 a dose. Farmanguinhos will produce the generic form of Kaletra for US$ 0.68.
23,400 of the 170 thousand Brazilians who receive free medications from the National Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS Program use Kaletra, which accounts for 30% of the budget allocated for the acquisition of AIDS treatment drugs.
Brazil will spend US$ 396 million (945 million reais) to purchase anti-retrovirals in 2005, and Kaletra represents US$ 107 million (257 million reais) of this total.
The drug has proved to be effective in blocking the reproduction of the HIV virus in patients who do not respond as well to other anti-retrovirals.
ABr - www.radiobras.gov.br
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.