Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 6 • 18th February 2009
GlaxoSmithKline Promises Cheaper Medicines in the Developing World
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GlaxoSmithKline has launched an initiative to reduce the prices of pharmaceutical drugs by 75 percent in the world’s 50 poorest countries, the company’s CEO, Andrew Witty, announced in a recent speech at Harvard University. The British pharmaceutical company, which ranks second in global sales, also vowed to make its patented products and processes available for research and development into neglected diseases.
“We have the capacity to do more, and we can do more,” Witty said.
With the exception of HIV/AIDS, GSK will open its patent protection for neglected diseases that include diabetes, heart disease, asthma, malaria, genital herpes, hepatitis B and tuberculosis. In addition, the company plans to reduce the price of the drugs by at least 75 percent, and to donate 20 percent of the profits it earns in least-developed countries, or LDCs, to bolster health care facilities in poor regions.
GSK has also invited researchers to join the Tres Cantos tropical disease research facility in Spain for an open-source alliance on the rapid development of medicines for neglected diseases.
UNITAID, the international drug purchasing company, welcomed GSK’s initiative.
“Sharing knowledge and technologies and putting them at the service of global health is key to truly expanding treatments for all populations,” said Dr. Philippe Douste-Blazy of UNITAID.
UNITAID announced last July the establishment of a ‘patent pool’ in which patent holders and drug makers, including generic manufacturers, can voluntarily share information and cross-license specific medicines. The hope is that such co-operation will stimulate competition and ultimately bring prices down. The UNITAID pool will start with HIV therapies and will target low- and middle-income countries.
Medecins Sans Frontieres called GSK’s action a step in the right direction, but urged the company to provide more information with regard to the terms of any licenses attached to the patent pool, as these terms are of critical importance.
But GSK has argued against the need to provide information on licensing regarding HIV and AIDS because they believe that there is sufficient innovation in that specific area.
But Michelle Childs of MSF disagrees. “In the field of HIV/AIDS treatment, the gap between what is needed and what is available is large,” she said. MSF called on GSK to collaborate with UNITAID and make relevant intellectual property available through a voluntary patent pool for AIDS medicines.
“While any lowering of prices is welcome, this is by no means a panacea,” Childs said of GSK’s promise to make drugs more affordable.
“Experience has shown that competition among multiple generic producers is the tried and tested way to drive prices down.”
“The limitations of company discounts are particularly evident when they are restricted to least-developed countries only, and exclude middle-income countries – countries such as China, where in the absence of competition GSK charges over US$ 3,000 for the antiretroviral lamivudine,” Childs added.
ICTSD reporting.
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