4th June 2003
EU AGREES TIERED MEDICINE PRICING FOR POOR COUNTRIES
European governments on 26 May adopted a regulation that aims to facilitate the delivery of medicines to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis at strongly reduced (’tiered’) prices to developing countries. To this end, exporters are invited to put their products — both patented and generic — on a European Commission-run tiered price list. To be eligible, medicines have to be made available either with a price cut of 75 percent off the average price in OECD countries or at the cost of production plus 15 percent. The cheaper medicines will have to be labelled and re-importation is prohibited from the 76 eligible countries. If successful, the Commission plans to extend the system to other medicines and countries. While noting that the tiered pricing system was not directly related to the ongoing discussions on access to medicines in the WTO (see BRIDGES Weekly, 19 February 2003), the Commission argued that if countries could obtain medicines through the tiered pricing system, they would not need to invoke compulsory licenses. The charity Oxfam, however, expressed doubt that the new system would actually increase the affordability of drugs since even under the new rules, the (discounted) prices would still be too high to be affordable in most poor countries.
“EU acts to speed up flow of cheap Aids drugs,” FINANCIAL TIMES, 26 May 2003; EU clears plan to ensure delivery of cheap medicines to developing countries,” DG TRADE, 26 May 2003.