Essential Medicines News

Brazil, the first developing country to guarantee free AIDS treatment to anyone who needs it, has faced a steep increase in recent costs. In two years, the country’s spending on AIDS drugs has increased 75 percent.

AIDS activists say that ballooning drug prices must not be allowed to undermine a free, universal drug program that inspired Thailand, Uganda, and other nations to provide free antiretrovirals…

Activists and leaders of Brazil’s pharmaceutical industry are pushing the government to cut burgeoning drug costs by making generics of drugs that are still under patent. Under a 2001 World Trade Organization declaration, any country may copy patented drugs if its government deems it necessary to protect public health…

The Brazilian government has resisted licensing, fearing reprisals not only from pharmaceutical companies whose drugs they may not have the know-how to replicate but also from the countries in which the companies are based. The United States has trade regulations allowing it to retaliate against any country imperiling the business of a US company. If Brazil produced generics of patented US drugs, Washington could conceivably block Brazilian imports or suspend tariff waivers to the tune of billions of dollars.