Brazil Plans to Break Patents on Foreign AIDS Drugs

Brazil will break the patents next year on between three and five foreign drugs used in the anti-AIDS combination therapy central to its innovative program to fight the illness, the government said on Tuesday.

It would be the first time that Brazil breaks the patent on foreign drugs, after threatening to do so for years in its drive to cut the prices of the components of its 15-drug cocktail.

Even though Brazil will pay royalties, the country will violate the patents because it will do so without permission from the drug manufacturers. "After technical analysis of the sustainability of the universal access to medication in this country, we determined that we have to move to a situation of self-sufficiency through compulsory licensing," said Pedro Chequer, head of the government's AIDS program.

Under Brazil's program, hailed as a model for poor nations, all people with AIDS get free access to the drug combinations. "Breaking patents means vertical national production from start to finish, so that we are not dependent on any other country for essential materials," Chequer said. Chequer did not say which patents would be broken.

The Brazilian health ministry said on Monday it plans to start domestic production of three to five anti-AIDS drugs it currently buys from foreign pharmaceutical companies but did not explicitly say it would be breaking patents to do so.

12/03/04

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