Netherlands acts against re-sold AIDS drugs -Financial Times, UK **************************************** By Geoff Dyer Financial Times-London October 3 2002- The Dutch government is to recall a large batch of AIDS drugs which were sold at cut-price rates in Africa and illegally re-exported to the lucrative European market. Dutch officials said that more than 35,000 packets of pills with a market value of close to 15m Euros had been re-sold in the Netherlands and Germany, where a similar investigation is being conducted. Two types of Aids drugs were involved, both made byGlaxoSmithKline. The case is the first documented example of AIDS drugs destined for Africa being re-sold in Europe and threatens to undermine efforts to establish two different price levels for the developed and developing worlds for AIDS drugs. In the face of huge popular and political pressure, pharmaceutical companies have substantially cut the prices of AIDS drugs in developing countries over the last two years. The companies have protested that, if the profitability of their AIDS drugs in wealthy markets such as the US and Europe was damaged by cheap drugs flowing back from Africa, they would reduce research into new therapies for AIDS. GSK, the Anglo-American pharmaceuticals group which is the leading producer of Aids drugs, said: "We are appalled to see that this is occuring illegally and depriving treatment for the people in Africa for whom they were intended." The company said it remained committed to its scheme of lower priced Aids drugs in Africa and was co-operating with the authorities in the Netherlands and Germany. The Dutch Health Supervisory Service said it would recall 3,600 packets of GSK's Combivir and 2,400 packets of Epivir, both of which sell for about Euro 400 per 60-pill packet. The bulk of the drugs had originally been sold in Senegal, Congo Brazzaville and Ivory Coast. Germany and the Netherlands are two of the highest-priced drugs markets in Europe. A spokesman said that the Dutch judicial authorities were to prosecute the individuals involved. It is illegal to import drugs into an EU country which were originally sold outside the EU. It is believed the discovery of the drugs, which can be identified by checking batch numbers, followed a tip-off. Jo Nickolls, policy adviser at Oxfam, the development charity, said: "It is shocking that people are trying to profit from reduced priced AIDS drugs which were intended for people in Africa." She said it was important that a system be put in place to allow tiered pricing of AIDS drugs to function. This would include different labelling for drugs destined for Africa and more rigorous implementation by developed country governments of laws on illegalre-importing. According to a United Nations report published earlier this year, there are 28.5m people in sub-Saharan Africa with HIV/Aids. However, only 30,000 of them - about 0.1 per cent - receive the anti-retroviral drugs that have made AIDS a treatable disease in western countries. Source: http://news.ft.com/c.gif *---* A posting from AF-AIDS (af-aids@healthdev.net) To submit a posting, send to af-aids@healthdev.net For anonymous postings, add the word "anon" to the subject line To join, send a blank message to join-af-aids@healthdev.net To leave send a blank email to leave-af-aids@healthdev.net You are currently subscribed to af-aids as: kate@fahamu.org Archives before 19 September 2001: http://www.hivnet.ch:8000/africa/af-aids Archives after 19 September 2001: http://archives.healthdev.net/af-aids *********** The forum is moderated by the Health & Development Networks Moderation Team (HDN, www.hdnet.org) on behalf of the AF-AIDS Policy and Steering Committee (HST, HDN & SAfAIDS) with support from Fondation du Present (FdP) and technical support from Health Systems Trust (HST). The views expressed in this forum do not necessarily reflect those of HDN, HST, SAfAIDS or FdP. Reproduction welcomed, provided source and forum email address is quoted. Copyright AF-AIDS 2002