Drug access talks set to miss end of year deadline

Pharmaceutical companies and negotiators from poorer countries hard-hit by HIV, TB or malaria are reported to have agreed that missing the 31 December deadline for their talks on cheaper HIV drug access would be preferable to pushing through a flawed deal.

An agreement was reached at last year's World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Qatar that seemed to offer poorer countries the right to make cheaper generic versions of certain medication still covered by international copyright agreements, including anti-HIV drugs, in the event of a “health emergency.” However, implementation talks at the WTO in Geneva have been deadlocked over which diseases should be covered by the agreement and which countries are poor enough to qualify for the deal. The importation of generic HIV drugs from countries with a pharmaceutical infrastructure, such as Brazil, by resource poorer countries has also proved a thorny issue in the Geneva talks.

Dr Harvey Bale, chief negotiator for the pharmaceutical industry denied at a press conference that it was drug company patents which were preventing people with HIV obtaining treatments. He said that few of the drugs currently used to Africa were covered by patents and blamed poor health infrastructure and administration. He is quoted by Reuters as saying an agreement “will not affect the delivery of one single AIDS drug in the world.”

A negotiator from a resource limited country is reported as saying that it would be better sticking with current agreements which allow some flexibility in the event of health emergencies if a “good” agreement could not be reached.

Antiviral therapy in resource-limited settings