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The Pharmaceutical Industry

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  • The Truth begind the Spin - How the Europe-India Free Trade Agreement will harm access to medicines
    • November 2010
    • PDF, English
    • India plays a crucial role in supplying the developing world with affordable quality medicines, but this is under threat. The European Commission (EC) is currently negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) with India that includes a number of harmful provisions that could seriously hamper access to medicines across the developing world.
    • In response to growing criticism, the EC issued a Q&A (see bullet point below) to defend its position - but the EC misrepresents the real impact the FTA risks having. In pushing an agenda that promotes the interests of its own pharmaceutical industry, the EC is ignoring the crucial role played by affordable quality generic medicines manufactured in India, and is actively undermining patients’ access to newer essential drugs. The following highlights the truth hidden behind the spin in the ‘Q&A’ issued by the European Commission.
    • by Médecins Sans Frontières
  • EU-India FTA negotiations and access to medicines: Questions and answers
  • A lifeline to treatment: the role of Indian generic manufacturers in supplying antiretroviral medicines to developing countries
    • September 2010
    • PDF, English
    • Indian generic producers supply the majority of ARVs in developing countries. Future scale up using newly recommended ARVs will likely be hampered until Indian generic producers can provide the dramatic price reductions and improved formulations observed in the past. Rather than agreeing to inappropriate intellectual property obligations through free trade agreements, India and its trade partners – plus international organizations, donors, civil society and pharmaceutical manufacturers – should ensure that there is sufficient policy space for Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers to continue their central role in supplying developing countries with low-priced, quality-assured generic
      medicines.
    • by Brenda Waning, Ellen Diedrichsen and Suerie Moon
    • Journal of the International AIDS Society 2010

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April 2011: Conference on local pharmaceutical production in Africa to improve access to medicines

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the German International Cooperation (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) hosted, in cooperation with Action against AIDS Germany, the International Conference on Local Pharmaceutical Production in Africa from 4-6 April, 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa.

The objective of this conference was to give a comprehensive picture of key issues in the promotion of local pharmaceutical production in Africa to improve access to essential medicines, such as production, financing, quality, technology transfer as well as the use of TRIPS flexibilities and the harmonization of drug regulation.

The conference brought together a wide range of stakeholders whose collaboration is essential for promoting local pharmaceutical production, i.e. representatives of pharmaceutical companies and associations in Africa and other developing countries, Ministries of Health, Ministries of Industry and Trade, drug regulatory authorities, patent offices, judges associations, international organizations, civil society and academia.

See our pictures of the conference below:

For all details about the conference, please consult:

More information about the topic:

  • Trading Away Access to Medicines: How the European Union’s trade agenda has taken a wrong turn
    • October 2009
    • PDF, English
    • The EU is not committing sufficient resources to catalyze medical innovation on behalf of developing countries, and is cynically blocking progress at WHO to build a political consensus towards new models of innovation to address urgent helth needs in developing countries. Member States and the European Parliament must use their powers to ensure that the new European Commission radically reforms it policies.
    • By Sophie Bloemen (HAI Europe) and Rohit Malpani (Oxfam)
  • Delhi High Court Rejects Bayer’s Plea for Patent Linkage
    • August 2009
    • The Delhi High Court rejected an attempt by Bayer Corporation, a multinational pharmaceutical company, to sanction the patent linkage system in India through a court direction on August 18, 2009. While holding that unpatented (generic) drugs are not spurious drugs, Justice Ravindra Bhat held that this petition was an attempt to tweak public policy.
    • Read the complete press release
    • Read the original court papers here (PDF, English)
  • HIV-related Public-Private Partnerships and Health Systems Strengthening
    • July 2009
    • PDF, English
    • This UNAIDS report looks at the contribution of AIDS-related public-private partnerships to the six building blocks of health systems: service delivery; human resources; information; medicines and technologies; financing; and leadership. In terms of the AIDS response the most important locus of public-private partnerships is between companies and public health systems.
    • commissioned by the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, compiled by Ute Papkalla and Gesa Kupfer.
  • Seizure of UNITAID/Clinton Foundation anti-retroviral medicines by Dutch customs authorities ‘unacceptable’
    • Feb/March 2009
    • PDF, English
    • On December 9, 2008, an ARV shipment was confiscated by Dutch customs.  This kind of drug seizure is not an isolated case; similar confiscations happened already 14 times. HAI Europe, Oxfam and KEI thus issued a press release calling upon the EC to change the current regulations that led to this seizure and upon the Dutch government to proactively address this issue within the EU and to arrange for release of the drugs.
    • by Health Action International, Oxfam International and Knowledge Ecology International
  • Bioavailability of Generic Ritonavir and Lopinavir/Ritonavir Tablet Products in a Dog Model
    • Febuary 2009
    • PDF, English
    • by Kevin W. Garren, Sibtain Rahim, Kennan Marsh, John B. Morris
    • This study explored the bioavailability in dogs and chemical potency of generic ritonavir and lopinavir/ritonavir tablet products manufactured by various pharmaceutical companies.
    • The results reinforce the need for human bioequivalence testing of generic products containing ritonavir or lopinavir/ritonavir to assure that efficacy in patients is not compromised prior to these products being made available to patients. Procurement policies of funding agencies should require such quality assurance processes.
    • This study has been published in the February edition of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. This means the study was peer reviewed and there is sound evidence. In the absence of any scientific and evidence based discussion of the same from the firms that manufacture the product, they may not have a very sound premise for the fact that the generic products should be given to patients.
  • The Global Politics of Pharmaceutical Monopoly Power by Ellen ‘t Hoen
    • December 2008
    • PDF, English
    • This book is available under a Creative Commons License for free download or online reading.
    • Every day, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is confronted with the lack of access to adequate or affordable medical tools in the field. We face two major challenges – the high cost of existing medicines on the one hand, and the absence of appropriate or effective treatments for many of the diseases affecting our patients on the other.
    • This book by Ellen ‘t Hoen, former Director of Policy Advocacy for the MSF Access Campaign, explains why these twin challenges are in fact two sides of the same coin.  More importantly perhaps, it also analyses the latest mechanisms and policy changes that may help change the broken system of medical innovation and access to medicines today.
    • In particular, the book highlights recent alternative mechanisms to encourage medical R&D in a way that also ensures access to the developed product – by separating the cost of research and development from the price of diagnostics, medicines, and vaccines.
  • World CAB (Community Advisory Board) Meeting with the Indian Generic Drugs Industry
    • April 2008
    • PDF, English
    • Sponsored by the ITPC International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, in April 2008 twenty-five treatment activists from sixteen countries met in Delhi, India, with representatives of three Indian manufacturers of generic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The Indian generic drug industry is a major supplier of affordable ARVs to treatment programs in Africa, and their impact has facilitated placing nearly two million people on lifesaving treatment.