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(回答先: エイズ孤児、アジア・太平洋で１５０万人 ユニセフ推計 投稿者 ネオファイト 日時 2005 年 7 月 07 日 23:09:10)
これまでブラジル政府はアボット研究所からエイズ薬カレトラを購入し、患者に無料で提供していたが、予算が苦しいとアボットに値下げを要求し認められなければWTOルールに則り国営会社による非ブランド薬生産を開始するとしていた。アボットは、特許が認められなければ製薬会社の研究開発資金も滞り意欲も削がれ長期的には患者の利益にならない、ブラジルはアフリカ以外では最も安く薬の提供を受けている、と反論したが7日に交渉は決裂した。ブラジルはエイズ対策が進んでいる国と見なされていたが、その国でも特許を破る必要に迫られるということは今後のエイズ薬の特許を巡って大きな出来事になりそうである。ブラジルはに60万人のキャリアがいる。
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article296694.ece
Abbott Laboratories faced with anti-Aids drug dilemma
By Philip Thornton
Published: 04 July 2005
Abbott Laboratories, the US pharmaceutical giant, must decide this week whether to cut the prices of its key anti-Aids drug in the face of demands by Brazil.
The Latin American emerging economy served notice last month it would use powers under global trade rules to break Abbott's patent and make a generic copy of the Kaletra pill to cut the costs of its fight against the disease.
Abbott issued a vitriolic response last week, accusing Brazilian politicians of putting "short-term manoeuvring" over the interests of its own people.
It has to decide within 10 days of the request whether to cut its prices or lose its business to a Brazilian manufacturer that will make them for half the $1.17 Abbott charges. The deadline is understood to fall on Wednesday.
The spat is a test case that will have huge implications for both the global fight against HIV/Aids and the biotech industry in the UK, US and Europe.
It would be the first time a country has invoked its rights under concessions won during World Trade Organisation negotiations that allows governments to make cheap copies of drugs needed to tackle local health emergencies.
The Brazilian government says that as many as 600,000 Brazilians carry the virus and forecasts that by 2008 it will be spending $520m (£290m) a year on a cocktail of drugs including Kaletra.
"Brazil is concerned about doing a good job of treating those Brazilians who need it, with the proper medication," said Humberto Costa, the country's health minister.
Health and poverty groups fully support Brazil's action. Jim Kim, director of the department of HIV/Aids at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, said: "The Brazilian government is perfectly within its rights to suspend the patent of Kaletra ... so as to develop it at more accessible prices."
Oxfam said buying Aids drugs from Abbott and its fellow US giants Merck and Gilead Sciences used up 67 per cent of the country's budget for tackling the disease.
In its statement, Abbott said that as the world's ninth-largest economy, Brazil's demand for the same rights as the poorest countries was "against the spirit" of the agreement. It said: "Such a mis-step puts short-term manoeuvring ahead of the access to new and improved treatments."
It said compulsory licensing would have "significant negative consequences" for the development of future treatments for a range of diseases.
Brazil is to announce whether it will carry out a threat to break the patents on a leading HIV drug.
Brazil's ministry of health had given the drug's American manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, until midnight on Thursday to reduce its prices.
In the absence of a pricing agreement, the government said it will produce a cheaper version of the drug Kaletra.
The case is being followed closely in the developing world, where about 36 million people have the HIV virus.
Kaletra is one of the most widely-used anti-retroviral drugs, which are essential to the treatment of HIV.
Until now, the Brazilian government has brought stocks directly from Abbott Laboratories and then provided the drug free to patients.
However, two weeks ago the ministry of health said that Abbott's price for Kaletra was too high and that unless the cost of the drug was reduced, the government would start making its own generic equivalent at a state laboratory.
It says such a move is allowed under World Trade Organisation rules.
Research barrier
On Thursday, the two sides were locked in negotiations.
Abbott presented a new proposal shortly before the government's midnight deadline for agreement.
Health ministry officials are studying the company's final offer. Their response is expected on Friday.
If it does break the patent, the Brazilian government says it will save more than $50m (£28.4m) a year.
HIV campaigners say the move will also help bring down worldwide prices for anti-retroviral drugs.
But Abbott says Brazil currently enjoys the most generous pricing agreement of any country outside Africa. It argues that if patents are broken, pharmaceutical companies may be deterred from investing in further research.
In the past, a number of smaller nations have broken patents on HIV drugs, but this is still seen as a landmark case because Brazil has a highly successful Aids programme which is often sited as a model for other developing countries.
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