Global Action To Open Generic Competition For Key AIDS Drug 16/11/2011 by Intellectual Property Watch 1 Comment Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Public health advocates in a dozen countries worldwide have launched a coordinated campaign to bring about generic competition on a key medicine for HIV/AIDS, currently under patent by a pharmaceutical producer. The groups on 10 November began bringing legal and policy challenges to Abbott Laboratories’ patent monopoly on lopinavir+ritonavir (also known as Kaletra or Aluvia). The goal, they said in a press release, is “to spur competition by generic drugmakers and thereby lower the medicine’s price, as well as to free up its components for new and improved combination treatments.” Countries include Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, St Maartens, Thailand, United States, and Vietnam. Groups in those countries are sending letters, filing lawsuits and taking other actions. “These medicines can be manufactured cheaply where patent barriers can be overcome,” Peter Maybarduk, director of the Global Access to Medicines Program at Public Citizen, said in the release. “Licensing and competition could spur the development of new and improved ritonavir-based combination treatments against HIV/AIDS. If patent holders and the pharmaceutical industry will not negotiate, then health advocates will pursue compulsory measures to break their monopolies on lifesaving medicines.” Details of the campaign are here: http://www.citizen.org/Kaletra-campaign Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Related "Global Action To Open Generic Competition For Key AIDS Drug" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
[…] A global campaign by NGOs was launched last autumn to open rinotavir/lopinavir to generic competition (IPW, Public Health, 16 November 2011). […] Reply