Brazil Voids Merck Patent On AIDS Drug

JoeBackward writes "Merck has this useful anti-AIDS drug Elfavirenz, and Brazil has lots of poor people with AIDS. So, after trying really hard to get Merck to cooperate on pricing, the Brazilian government has decided to take a 'compulsory license' to the patent, and get the drug from a factory in India. This compulsory license is basically a way to take the patent by eminent domain." This move gives Brazil one more thing in common with Thailand, both of which have blocked YouTube. Thailand's compulsory licensing of Elfavirenz and Plavix has landed the country on the US's watch list for piracy.

Comments

humanity vs capitalism

[drfrog]

it s nice to see humanity win one for a change

who can really put a price on that?

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[TrnsltLife]

Agreed. Good for them, it's good to see a country looking out for the welfare of its own citizens ahead of the profits of some multinational corporation.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Jarjarthejedi]

I have to agree on this one. Normally I'm against things like this because I personally feel that the more this stuff happens the less likely people are to work towards something, the whole private property issue. In this case, however, the pricing was just absurd, the company was not trying to make a slight profit by helping people (which I'm fine with) but way overcharging them. Good for Brazil.

Sure, it cost them a lot to make it. But this isn't a drug whose need is going to go away any time soon and trying to remake your investment quickly means that poor people can't buy something that can save their life. Crix whatever should've been priced in such a way so that 10-12 years down the road they began making a profit, not so that they start making profit almost immediately. I mean, what investor wouldn't invest in an AIDS drug just because they're not likely to recoup their losses within a year? We all know AIDS is going to be around for a while, cut your prices so that more people can get it.

But hey, just my opinion. Hopefully Brazil can start getting cheap crix out in their country and save some lives.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[drfrog]

im not saying they shouldnt, but there is a difference between making a profit and gouging poor people for a drug they need

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[JeanBaptiste]

... but it took capitalism to create the formula for the drug in the first place ... without capitalism _nobody_ would get this drug. so i'd say its not humanity vs capitalism, rather humanity benefiting from capitalism, and brazil and thailand aren't helping any.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[drfrog]

capitalism itself didnt create it

knowledge did

peopel living in the capitalist state took advantage of the fact they had that knowledge

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[jalet]

if the costs were so huge and if they wanted to recoup these massive costs without sacrificing human beings at the same time, you wouldn't see this industry WASTE tons of money on things like congresses in 5 stars hotels all around the world, champagne and wonderful food for even the smallest meeting, and things like that, would you ?

And yes, I know what I'm talking about.

This industry, much like the MAFIAA, deserve to die. Human beings don't.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[rewinn]

>Where do you think the research for the next AIDS drug will come from?

Mostly funded by taxpayers, then handed over to Big Pharma, as usual.

"...the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH)."The Truth About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angell

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[iamacat]

How are they going to recoup these costs from penniless AIDS patients? Property rights should only be enforced when the benefit of the owner from keeping the property is at least loosely comparable to advantages withheld from the public. Weather it's generic drugs for the poor, public access to privately owned scenic land, freely using commercial software for education or picking leftover fruit after the harvest, your property rights are not always absolute. Even government relocates people on the path of a new highway or in an unsustainable disaster zone.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[The Analog Kid]

It's okay, they will just do what they always do when countries around have price controls on medication, charge people in the US more than everyone else.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[trout007]

AIDS will be around a lot longer than the patent for this drug. They have to recoupe their expenses for development and marketing before the patent runs out. I would like to see the whole patent system done away with. But you would also have to do away with the FDA and let people be free and responsible for what they put in their body. But that's just me.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[slughead]

it s nice to see humanity win one for a change

who can really put a price on that?

*Raises hand* OOh! I can!

The number of years added to the lives of the Brazilians who get this drug at a reduced cost will be subtracted several times over from future AIDS victims who would have otherwise have had better drugs available due to the added research dollars.

In short, adding 10 days more life now = subtracting 20 days more life in the future (arbitrary but realistic figure). People who want to ban patents on drugs are either selfish or stupid, because they are basically killing future generations by choking off pharmaceutical research dollars.

Oh, and by the way, this is not the first time Brazil has done this with AIDS medications. I'm not sure why it's getting press now... Just thought I'd add that.

Honestly, the populations in Brazil who would most benefit from AIDS medication probably wouldn't have the scratch to pay the full price. However, this WILL lead to other countries doing the same thing. If enough of them do, people will stop investing in pharmaceutical research because there wont be any ROI.

What the drug companies should be able to do is sell these to Brazil at cost, as a form of price discrimination. However, if that were to happen, AIDS victims in the US and other countries who could otherwise afford to pay the real cost of these meds would simply fly to Brazil, pick up their prescriptions, and fly back (which would be cheaper).

By saying that these drugs are "counterfeit", the American drug companies can keep these cheap drugs from coming back to the United States at these low prices, which would be disastrous for drug companies, and indeed, future generations afflicted with AIDS. In truth, the drug companies may not care that Brazil does this, though they'll certainly try and keep 'rich' western countries from doing the same thing.

Whether the companies are good or evil is irrelevant, because they have no choice but to sell these drugs at the same price in every country. Just look at what the [relatively] rich Americans do: buy from Canada and Mexico. If we made this practice illegal (which I think is wrong, but bare with me here), only then could we see the true colors of American Pharma. They probably would be 'giving it away' in the 3rd world nations, if for PR if nothing else.

Somebody has to pay for the future of pharmacology, and the U.S. looks to be it.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[MrNaz]

Not all moves to place fetters on the free market are the result of the hidden agendas of slavering, bloody thirsty autocrats, despite the media's attempt to make it seem so. The free market will not feed the poor, or give them medication or save their lives, as none of those activities are profitable. Ideas that save human life are the property of every human alive, and I will fight until the day I die the rights of people to unreasonably profit from or withhold those ideas from humankind. Those of you about to jump in with "but who'd pay for the research" arguments, pull your pants back up and get away from me. I've heard them all before and written on the subject many times. If our society cannot place a value on the saving of life itself, then we need to have a good, long, hard look at the belief that our society is the greatest one on Earth.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[emarkp]

No, the research always comes from a basic need to supply people with medicines at a price that will let the producers feed their families.

I'm always confused by people who see it as humane to steal from one group to give to another. Maybe you could give your own money to the people who need it to pay for the drugs they need?

(Oh, and I love how my post has been moderated as a Troll, simply because someone disagrees with me. That comment was on topic, not trolling.)

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[jellie]

Exactly. And to those people who argue for the free market (competition, profits, whatever): the pharmaceutical/biotech/healthcare is NOT a free market! There is literally no competition, and no regulation on pricing. It is true that a mere fraction of drugs will ever get approved, and it costs billions of dollars to do the research and the clinical trials.

But there is nothing that prevents a company from setting insanely high prices because most of the wealthy patients are shielded from the real cost. National healthcare is a great thing, but we must address the price gouging because the marginal cost to produce each pill is minimal, yet the costs are in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. I can pay $5 for my drug, but my (parent's) employer will cover the other several hundred dollars. And doctors usually won't encourage generics or alternatives, because it may strain their relationship with the patient. Would you really hesitate to get Abraxane, the FDA-approved brand-name drug at over $4000 a dose, or Taxol, the generic version of the same molecule that costs $150? Thankfully, Brazil knows what's in its citizen's best interests, at least in this case.

I believe the pharmaceuticals spend about half of their money on marketing (which includes direct-to-consumer advertising, marketing to doctors, marketing to hospitals, and others), not R&D or those poor, poor lobbyists and congresspeople.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[dynamo52]

I see that you've been reading the leaflets that the pharmaceuticals have been spreading for years. The truth is that most of the actual research is conducted in labs that receive HUGE amounts of public funding. The the drug companies greatest contribution comes in the development of manufacturing processes.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[modecx]

And Amen to giving more encouragement to the drug industry to further ignore the needs of the developing world.

They were already largely ignored anyway. Was it possible to make and market these drugs at a price point that could be accessible to people who need it? Surely. That's the entire reason why they have an Indian company lined up to produce it. No, they would rather have their ten thousand percent markup, and a monopoly on the market for their seven years, while everyone suffers.

The funniest part of this is that Merck now gets shit nothing, because they wouldn't play ball. They could have had a nice piece of the pie, but now they have pie in the face because they were too greedy.

I think it's an interesting thing how Canada can get these stupid drug companies to push their prices down 50% less than we can buy them in the US in some cases, and yet the drug companies are in a shit storm frenzy to compete with the other companies who market similar products, so their product will be sold to Canadians... But I guess that's what capitalism is all about. It's funny that the last bastion of true corporation on corporation capitalism in the US might very well be represented by a foreign countries' socialized medical program, don't you think?

Good fucking job Brazil. If I could give a country a pat on the back, you'd get it. Bravo.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Izago909]

The drugs were developed under the expectation that someone would pay good money for them. Perhaps next time Brazil's poor infect themselves with something, Merck won't bother.

It's a mentality like this that will lead to the downfall of the human race. Disease knows no race, religion, nationality, or income bracket. Have you ever watched a person you care for waste away because they couldn't afford the medication they needed? I thought not.
Sorry buddy, the number of poor in this world by far exceed the number of WASPS. You are a minority.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[rhombic]

Sorry to disappoint, but there's a lot of people inside drug companies that give a lot of shit about people. I personally know I could be making a hell of a lot more money in the financial industry than I do in pharma. Why have lobbiests & etc to deal w/ governmental issues? Tell ya what, when the HMO's, AARP, & etc quit pushing the government to expropriate drugs & give them away for free, the companies would be more than happy to drop the government affairs and get back to doing science. But in the current climate, if you don't lobby, your interests will get buried. And then, once the investors realize that there are no more paying customers, you'll have no drug industry. Hope there's good leaches around in a few years when you decide to get sick.

Where get the $1e9 dollars per drug? Lots of places. Here's a couple:

The Tufts CSDD studies is a good source, their estimate was $900 mil four years ago.

Medical News Today estimates $1.2 billion for a new biological

Essentially, when you want the drug companies to give away a drug, you want to expropriate their property. As an investor, ask yourself whether you're willing to put your money into an industry that's subject to expropriation, and think about whether you want a drug industry around or not the next time a pesky little virus emerges from the forrest.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[master0ne]

and when you get sick with a FATAL disease, that they have a treatment for, but are asking $10,000 a month for the treatment, thats NOT coverd under insurance, maby you'll change your point of view, we have the benifit of not living in a 3rd world country, and having decent jobs. The price there charging is the equivlant of highway robery here... even the drug underground here doesnt usualy make much more than $2-$3 per pill for illegal painkillers (loritabs)... why should a legitiment goverment have to pay top dollar for a drug that will greatly help their population out.... a profit is one thing, but if there selling the drug to thiland for about 1/2 of what there willing to sell it to Brazil for (and you can bet there still turning some profit on thiland), then a 100% markup is unjustified.... (especially considering the massive quantity they want... there not asking just for 100 or 1,000 pills, there gonna need MILLIONS of pills... a guarenteed sale, if the price is right)

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[richie2000]

Yes, because it didn't cost anything to do all the tons and tons of research and testing (not to mention the cost of education for all the scientists) to produce the drug. Let's turn that around: Merck did not pay one single dime for the education of those scientists. The US taxpayers did. Merck did not pay one single dime for all the basic research needed to develop the drug. The US taxpayers did. Why should Merck be allowed to steal money from the US taxpayers?

Here's some basic reading for you:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/21/opinion /opinion_30032324.php
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
http://archive.salon.com/tech/htww/2006/01/13/drug _patents/index.html
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&t ask=view&id=1065&Itemid=8

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[richie2000]

... but it took capitalism to create the formula for the drug in the first place ... Not really. It took a lot of greed and gaming of the system. If that's capitalism, well count me out.

Here's some basic reading for you on how Big Pharma is gaming the patent system for their own short-sighted gain:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/04/21/opinion /opinion_30032324.php
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
http://archive.salon.com/tech/htww/2006/01/13/drug _patents/index.html
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&t ask=view&id=1065&Itemid=8

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Tickletaint]

Yep. And it's not as if Merck couldn't have predicted this would happen. They're smart enough to have factored the risk of this patent being voided into their decision to pursue an AIDS drug. They gambled, and in this case they lost, but they weren't completely blindsided. It happens.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[master0ne]

oh, and one last point about the profit... the knock off drugs there buying cost $0.45 per pill, and you can bet your fat white ass that that company is turning a profit, $0.65 cents for the brand name which respects copyright is reasonable, hell even $0.85 wouldnt be too bad, but to charge more than double what it costs to manufacture the drug and still turn a profit ($0.90) to me, is just wrong...

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Volante3192]

FTFA:

Talks over the price of Merck's drug, Efavirenz, broke off on Thursday when the health ministry rejected the New Jersey-based company's offer to cut its $1.59 per pill price by 30 percent. Brazil wanted to pay what Merck charges Thailand, or $0.65 per pill.

They TRIED to negotiate, and Merck put up a wall. So, in effect, Merck DID refuse Brazil.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[fourchannel]

Oh it sure is nice not to be born with aids, especially when your mother got infected when pregnant. Or how about when the guerilla soldiers come to town and rape people. Or what about sheer ignorance of modes of transmittal. It sure is nice to live in a country that makes it very clear the dangers of aids, I'm not so sure Brazillians have that luxury.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[hxnwix]

They do need to recoup the cost of the development of failed drugs and dead-end research.

That being said, we might also want to remember that RIAA members need copyright durations of artist's death + 1000000 years in order to compensate for all those failed artists.

And let us not forget that not every hole exxon drills yields oil, which makes $3.50/gallon a reasonable price for 85 octane gas.

Furthermore, we should bear in mind that baby seals are vastly overpopulated ...

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Y-Crate]

I see that you've been reading the leaflets that the pharmaceuticals have been spreading for years. The truth is that most of the actual research is conducted in labs that receive HUGE amounts of public funding. The the drug companies greatest contribution comes in the development of manufacturing processes. Take AZT for example. Developed by the National Institutes of Health in the 1960s as a cancer drug, but failed to amount to anything.

Flash-forward to the early 1980s and the frightening early years of the AIDS crisis where there was absolutely nothing in the way of effective treatments for the first six years of the epidemic. It was pure hospice care until the National Cancer Institute took another look at AZT and found that it was the first drug that HIV seemed to respond to. The patent was assigned to Burroughs-Wellcome who paid for drug trials and promptly began selling it two years later. Selling it at a price that made it the most expensive drugs ever marketed ($8,000+ a year per patient) - despite the fact it was developed with public money and was the only treatment available for a rapidly-spreading disease with a 100% mortality rate.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[laughingcoyote]

Absolutely silly. But it's a good measure here. Looks like Big Pharma's line of shit is considerably more effective than the RIAA and MPAA. Here's hoping they don't catch on.

Here's the reality of the situation. The biggest expense to Big Pharma is not research and development (which mainly takes place in universities, including a lot of public ones. Big Pharma does not fund those. You and I do.) It is not testing (and that could be handled entirely by the FDA, without their involvement at all. A lot of it already is. Big Pharma does not pay for the FDA. You and I do.) Their biggest expense is not manufacturing the pharmaceuticals, which, as should be obvious here, can be done pretty cheaply. Their biggest expense is wining, dining, and schmoozing doctors to use their medicines. To advertise on TV, to get patients to push doctors into getting them whatever medication that is. And to pay overpaid executives.

Let's cut out the middleman, and one of the biggest expenses here-the millions-per-year CEOs. Fund the universities well to develop the drugs. They will develop drugs for Third-World maladies, once the impetus to "make something you can sell" is gone. Have the FDA entirely in charge of testing, and farming out production-just production-to corporate entities. There we go.

Under the current system, there's far more incentive to look for treatments rather than cures. A treatment is a lifelong paycheck, a cure is a one-time payment. There's far too much impetus to develop Viagra rather than treatments for diseases that kill millions in poor countries. There's far too big a temptation to hold back a slightly-improved formulation until the patent on the current one is about to expire, and to use it to extend the patent far longer than it was intended to last. If that system collapses, I won't shed too many tears. Something better will replace it.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[mikkelm]

Yeah, because people with AIDS don't have children, and no one, especially the poor, are forced into prostitution.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[bheer]

> Brazil wanted to pay what Merck charges Thailand, or $0.65 per pill.
> They TRIED to negotiate, and Merck put up a wall.

Doesn't seem much like a negotiation to me. Seems more like a "we're the boss in Brazil, and since you don't want to meet our demands, we'll detonate the nuke^W^W^W take your patent away."

Of course, the Brazilian government is within its rights to do this especially as the article notes, they want to make drugs on their own someday. Ironically, the Indians, who they're importing from right now, are busily *increasing* IP protection for drugs even as Indian drug companies invest more and more in R&D and want legal protections in place to protect those investments. In short, all the Robin Hood-style IP-scoffing* sounds good only until you try your hand at profiting from them.

*I should note that this is quite different from scoffing the RIAA and the MPAA, partly because drug companies do not sic lawyers on patients who consume knockoff drugs.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[EWAdams]

Remind me again why ANY health-care activity should be for-profit. ANY. Band-aids to heart surgery. Why is selling food to starving Africans profiteering (which it is), but selling healthcare to people in pain or danger of death, not profiteering?

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[SillyNickName4me]

Yes, because lord knows a bunch of politicians are best folk to decide how much 'profit' a company needs, as opposed to the market (which can be cruel but a whole lot less corruptible than your average socialist wannabe).

That argument would work if the market was actually free. As long as those same politicians are needed to have those nice patents, they also happen to get a say in things.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[master0ne]

although the patent doesnt last forever on papre, the Pharm. companies are always trying to figure out a way to extend there patents such as this method: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7347/1176/ b

drug companies took advantage of the act by filing frivolous new patents designed to extend their hold on the market, the two senators say. "Drug companies are not spending all their time innovating new drugs. They're innovating new patents," Senator Charles Schumer of New York told a Senate subcommittee.

This drove up the average length of market exclusivity of drugs from 9.0 years in 1982 to 10.1 years in 1999.

9 years in alot of cases is too long to wait for a life saving drug millions of people need now. The way things are going though, the wait for a patent to expire will last alot longer than 9 years....

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[bheer]

Looking at it from Brazil's POV, 45c from India vs 65c from a reluctant Merck -- I can see why they thought 65c was a good deal. Although as I mentioned in another post, it seems it was more of a "fulfil our demands or we do bad things to you" than a negotiation. And yes, this will hurt Brazil especially as it tries to develop its own drug-making expertise (which the article suggested).

If there are lessons here, I guess it is that the 3rd world is f*cked as the developed world can pay beacoup $$$ for health care and drugs. In the long run, this will result in a gradual siphoning off of the best talent even as 3rd world countries want to spend less on things that cost millions (if not billions) to produce.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[mcpkaaos]

but there's a lot of people inside drug companies that give a lot of shit about people

I didn't say a word about 'people inside drug companies'. The people researching and developing drugs are not the same as those who decide who gets them or at what cost.

In any case, this is what drug lobbyists get you. You can drop the angel drug companies vs. evil HMO routine. It's old.

Essentially, when you want the drug companies to give away a drug,

You should re-read the article.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Mark_in_Brazil]

there is a difference between making a profit and gouging poor people for a drug they need

Right. And in this case, the Brazilian government, whose AIDS policy is a model being copied by other countries worldwide, makes sure every single HIV and AIDS patient in Brazil has the medicines. It therefore has huge bargaining power, because it represents such a large number of patients. The former Health Minister, the man responsible for Brazil's AIDS policy, is José Serra, currently the governor of São Paulo state (think of it as being like holding the offices of governor of California and New York and you start to get an idea of the importance of that post). Before anyone cries for the poor drug companies, there are a few important facts you need to know. First, when Serra was still Health Minister, the drug companies decided to try to make more money since the government was buying up everything. They tried to increase their prices when they were already reaping massive profits (all these drugs are mature products in the "cash cow" phase of the product lifecycle, so the BS "paying for research" argument doesn't fly in this case) at the old price. And now the Brazilian government is asking that Merck charge the same price here as they charge in Thailand. And you can be sure Merck is not selling at that price in Thailand as a public service - they are making a profit there too.
When Serra originally went to the two largest makers of AIDS drugs that sell in Brazil, he showed them that the Brazilian constitution permits the Health Minister to determine that a given epidemic is an emergency situation, and in case of emergencies, the Federal Government, on the recommendation of the Health Minister, can break patents. Serra went to the companies and told them he didn't want to do that, but that they would have to negotiate with him in good faith or he would simply break their patents. As I recall, one went along and the other balked for a time, until they saw that Serra wasn't bluffing and was really going to allow Brazilian pharma companies to manufacture the patented drug. I'm surprised the president had to go this far, but the drug companies may have decided to improve their bottom line by doing a little gouging of AIDS patients in Brazil. I'm proud of the government for not knuckling under to Big Pharma. If only the US government would see that and be shamed into actually standing up to Big Pharma on any issue, any issue at all. Instead, you all (I fled 7 years ago) will have to deal with health care prices spiraling out of control until almost nobody can afford it. I have to tell you I'm happy to be in Brazil, a country that actually cares about its residents' health. Yes, I said RESIDENTS. I'm not even a citizen yet! Brazil isn't xenophobic like the USA either, and does not see me, an immigrant, as some kind of threat or some kind of outsider to be treated like crap. Contrast that with how immigrants are treated in the USA these days... I understand there were huge anti-immigration rallies in the USA last week.

Just a quick disclaimer: I think Serra was one hell of a great Health Minister. In addition to standing up to Big Pharma on AIDS drugs, he was also the one who successfully pushed for a law permitting generic drugs (before him, there were none in Brazil), something you can be sure the price gougers from Big Pharma were opposing every step of the way. Serra was really brave to stand up to them on those two points, and I'm proud of him for doing it. He also worked hard (from the executive branch) with the Brazilian Congress to pass a modern organ donation law in Brazil, basically doing away with the black market for transplantable organs that existed before. All that said, I don't think Serra would be much of a president, and I can't say I'm unhappy he lost in his bid for the presidency in 2002. I suspect he'll run again in 2010, because the current president, who is serving his second consecutive term and is still massively p

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[zippthorne]

Methinks you don't understand what a patent IS. It is a trade in which *both* parties benefit. The goal of patents is to get inventors to publish their results, in part so that the technology doesn't disappear with the death of the inventor, and also to increase the available information which people can learn from and build upon.

The price for them publishing is modest compared to the risk they would take doing it: since they will not be able to maintain a monopoly through trade secrets once they publish (by definition), we grant them a temporary monopoly through threat of force.

The fact that we seem to be living in the freakin' future (where the single greatest cause of death basically amounts to "too much food," no one worries about dingos eating the baby at night, and the streets aren't covered in poo) is testament to the fact that this trade has been mutually, greatly beneficial.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[jbn-o]

So why not have a different system to make these drugs, one which we all pay for and is owned by nobody where none of the fruits of research and development are anyone's "property". This way we can get the work done, pay people to do it, and distribute what everyone needs on a basis of how sick you are, not how much you can afford to pay. I remain unconvinced that privatizing medical needs is a good idea, just as I remain convinced that privatizing firefighting was a good idea (thankfully reversing that work has been done).

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[master0ne]

ok i came up with a "reasonable" figure simply by taking what the competition is charging (at minimum the cost of materials and labor, but im sure theres some profit in there too) $0.45 per pill (as stated in tfa), and simply multiply by 2. that gives the brand name competetor 100% or more profit off the pill (say appox $0.45 per pill on the low side). Per http://www.avert.org/worlstatinfo.htm the estimated number of aids infections world wide are:

37.2 million adults and 2.3 million children 37.2+2.3= 39.5 Million so some simple math... .45 cents per pill, assume 100 pills per person... $45 per person times 40 Million people 45*40,000,000 equals 1.8 Billion dollars in profit.... thats at a cost of $0.90 per pill, and only assuming each person only needs 100 pills for a lifetime and that the AIDS population doesnt grow...

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Mark_in_Brazil]

It sure is nice to live in a country that makes it very clear the dangers of aids, I'm not so sure Brazillians have that luxury.

While I agree with the overall point your post makes, I'd like to tell you that Brazil has an outstanding AIDS policy, one that has been praised by the WHO (called OMS here - Organização Mundial de Saúde) and copied by numerous other countries. Brazil's policy includes free distribution of condoms, distribution of clean needles to addicts of intravenous drugs, and free access to the best and most modern drugs. It also includes free HIV and STD testing, a service I've personally used a few times. I am not in a high risk group, but it's good to be sure. Further, the Brazilian government's AIDS policy includes education. I myself learned quite a bit from the people at the government health center near my apartment where I have gotten HIV tests. The test result is given by a counselor, and the counselor gave me a lot of information I didn't previously have about STDs and HIV. Since I am highly educated and generally try to keep myself well-informed, I was surprised at how much basic information I didn't know before the counselor told me.
So in Brazil, in fact, the dangers of AIDS are made very clear by the excellent educational portion of the AIDS policy. Further, unlike the USA, insane religious fanatics don't have the power to push idiocy like the "abstinence only" sex education pushed in a lot of places in the USA despite having been repeatedly proven not to decrease teen pregnancy at all, but proven to lead to increased incidence of STDs, including AIDS. So let me bounce it right backatcha and say it sure is nice to live in a country where the public interest is placed above the sensitivities of lunatics who want to impose their beliefs on others, even if imposition of those beliefs can be a death sentence.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[TheRaven64]

Would you really hesitate to get Abraxane, the FDA-approved brand-name drug at over $4000 a dose, or Taxol, the generic version of the same molecule that costs $150? The solution to this is to prevent drug companies from advertising prescription medicines to anyone other than those legally allowed to write prescriptions. I have no idea what Abraxane or Taxol is (although a little research tells me that Paclitaxel is a drug used in the treatment of Cancer, and it branded as Taxol).

If I get a prescription medicine in the UK, I have absolutely no idea what the brand name is. My doctor will never identify it by name, the prescription will say how many milligrams of the chemical name I need, and the pharmacy will fill that with the branded or unbranded equivalents (usually unbranded, in a generic bottle with a label printed by them).

To anyone outside the USA, the whole concept of advertising prescription drugs to the general public seems absurd, and somewhat ironic for a company in the middle of a 'war on drugs.'

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[M. Baranczak]

Yes, because lord knows a bunch of politicians are best folk to decide how much 'profit' a company needs, as opposed to the market

In this case, the market is the one doing the deciding. The Brazilians are going with the lowest bidder. So what's the problem?

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[ne0n]

would you mind citing the exact patents which cover poo-free street technology? The whole of France needs to license this stuff.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[king-manic]

Brazil isn't exactly poor. Badly mismanaged but not "poor". It's a fairly large economy. This whole ideas that everyone outside of the west is the "third world" is kind of silly. The term itself is related tot he cold war originally which has no meaning now. I know it's now a reference to developing countries but thats kind of a fluffy definition too. What are they developing too? It's sort of a ethnocentric term, full of hubris. Your not like me so you must be a few categories down. Is china third world? India? How about the Ukraine? /rant

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[fourchannel]

Wow, well I'm really impressed with Brazil, and even more pissed off at my own country (USA). But people are people, regardless of their local or country, and this goes to show that our current US government needs some serious reform.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Frangible]

Humanity didn't win one. To develop and screen drug candidates, and do human trails (of which a low percentage ever make it past the preliminary stage) is fantastically expensive. The patent protection for drugs is very short-term and among other things, is incentive for the very large costs of developing the drug. So... sure, in this case, poor people get AIDS drugs. But if the company knows that pouring millions into AIDS drugs is just going to get their work stolen, they're not going to research AIDS drugs in the future, because of the huge, huge costs involved of doing human trials of drugs. Now, perhaps you could argue the NIH should step in with funding and support research, development, and human trails of AIDS drugs instead. Unfortunately, while the NIH does a lot, that kind of thing is really beyond their ever-decreasing budget. Do Americans demand better NIH budgets, instead of doing things like... supporting wars? Nope. Americans don't lobby and push for it. And so the only people left to develop AIDS drugs is pharmaceutical corporations. Further, almost every pharmaco will give drugs away for free if you meet income requirements. If individual poor Brazilians were to fill out the form on their website, their lack of health insurance/coverage and low income would get them drugs for free. This does not, however, apply to governments purchasing drugs. Go to ANY drug company website-- you will find free patent medication forms. Frankly, the drug companies are the only ones who can develop these drugs until Americans demand better NIH and public health funding (which Americans generally don't do or care about), they give them away for free if you meet income requirements, and need to recoup the huge, massive development costs. If they don't, guess what happens to new drug development? Humanity didn't win here. Not by a long shot. Nor did capitalism. What won here was greed and ignorance. Push and lobby for better public health funding, or accept the reality of the situation.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Registered Coward v2]

Remind me again why ANY health-care activity should be for-profit. ANY. Band-aids to heart surgery.

Because the government is so good at running things?

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[SillyNickName4me]

The number of years added to the lives of the Brazilians who get this drug at a reduced cost will be subtracted several times over from future AIDS victims who would have otherwise have had better drugs available due to the added research dollars.

There are a few problems with this argument:

1. If Brazil had gotten the drugs for the price they wanted, Merck would still have made a profit, whereas Brazil was not going/able to pay what Merck was asking, so the alternative is no profit, and fewer research dollars.

2. If the pharma companies were not spending money on marketing, their R&D budgets could be doubled.

Also catering to the poor means having to distribute the R&D cost over many more pills, how good you can also sell many more of them, abeit for a much lower price. It nowhere means not being able to make a profit and earn back your R&D.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[MvD_Moscow]

WTF? Are you just making all this shit up? Do you have any evidence to prove your point? Corporate accounts showing how unprofitable Europe/Canada is? Anything at all?

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[saforrest]

You have to physically perform an action which every semi-intelligent person knows carries the risk of AIDS (unprotected sex, sex with a stranger, sharing needles, etc) to get AIDS.

Oh goody, the moralistic argument.

First, it needn't surprise you that there are all kinds of ways one person can compel another to engage in sexual intercourse. And I'm not just talking about rape and prostitution either.

Second, there are all kinds of ways one person can come into contact with another's blood. In a country with a sufficiently high HIV prevalence, any car accident, mugging, or fistfight might result in infection. And while the First World now has pretty good testing regimes for blood transfusions, are you sure that's the case everywhere?

If you think every fistfight is voluntary: on CBC radio a couple of weeks ago, they had an example (from Tanzania I believe) where a guy had gotten beat up while defending his elderly neighbour's house from burglars, and contracted HIV in the process.

So cut the moralizing "they all made their choices" crap.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[snottgoblin]

it seems it was more of a "fulfil our demands or we do bad things to you" than a negotiation

That sounds like "negotiation" to me. You negotiate to get the best deal and if you hold the upper hand you get to throw your weight around. That's probably what Merck would have done if there were no alternatives but them. All the talk about "good faith" in business is PR BS.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[RealGrouchy]

Yes, and Brazil actually had the balls to stand up the the U.S. and refuse AIDS prevention money that was locked into abstinence-only programs.

- RG>

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[TubeSteak]

I need a place to live. The government has decided that you must give me your house because I need it more than you do. Nice to see humanity win one, eh?

Wow.

Good thing that patents aren't houses.
Patents are monopolies granted by the Government.
What the Government has given, the Government can take away.

Not to mention that WTO law allows for exactly what Brazil did.

Just to be clear, I don't want you modded down because I disagree with your statement (though I obviously do). I'd like to see you modded down because your statement is simplistic and wrong. On multiple levels.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[SilentChris]

Because if you don't have this you get a system of healthcare paid for by the lowest bidder. Doctors that aren't really motivated to study and be the best at their craft. Long waiting lists for basic procedures. In other words, Canada.

Like all things in life, an element of greed is involved with healthcare. Also like all things in life, that same greed drives competition which forces participants to be better than average. We're built that way down to the very cell (Ever see an amoeba engulf another one? You think they feel remorse? Competition is ingrained in their design).

A family member of mine recently had major surgery. The tab was $100,000. For that high price, we got what has been argued one of the best adolescent surgeons in America. That man saved his life. If we didn't pay that price -- hell, if prices were not an issue -- would we have gotten the same level of commitment? Questionable.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[glwtta]

As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

That's true, but entirely misleading. The cost of bringing these drugs to market absolutely dwarfs the cost of the research they were "based on". The total cost of getting a major drug to market is nearing $1 billion; I don't have a handy break-down of the various stages of the process, but I know that the average burn rate for a pure-research biotech of 50-75 people will be about $10-12 million a year. So, if after 5-7 years, having already done all the "innovative" work, such a company hands off a promising target or compound to big pharma, they haven't really put that big of a dent into the total cost of the drug. Not to mention that a large portion of such research is still financed by big pharma through various licensing deals (example/disclaimer: where I work, not a few salaries are currently being paid by none other than Merck).

The sad truth is that this is what it takes to fund medical research - developing a drug is a long, ridiculously expensive, and ridiculously risky process (from what I remember, less than 5% of all initiated drug programs make it to market; and that's actual drug programs, which is pretty far along from a research perspective). Without phenomenal payoffs there would not be any incentive to do it.

But everybody loves pure, unadulterated capitalism, right?

(btw, I have no problem with what the Brazilian government is doing here)

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Invidious]

Actually, it seems more to me like "hey, you're selling it for $.xx here, why the hell can't we get it for that price? No? Oh, you wanna charge us double, just 'cause we're not them? Screw you, then." And I'm perfectly OK with that.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[nosferatu1001]

wow, ignore the body of the post and attack the person. nice.

the US is known for using "abstinence" only, and not providing any barrier methods. that is plain stupid, and defies human nature.

the country with the highest abstinence age, lowest STI rate and highest public awareness is Holland. Sex education starts at 5, and teaches that sex is normal, fun but overall has to be SAFE. and it works. and your system doesnt

GUess you;ll just go down the toilet then.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Elektroschock]

I don't really see the point of the US. Patent law adheres to the territorial principle. Brasil is free to request compulsory licensing. And everythings conforms TRIPs. In fact the USA did the same with Bayer vaccine.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[hamelis]

I love how the US has put Thailand on its watch list for piracy even though compulsory licensing is completely legal under internation patent agreements. This is the only reason we don't see a lot more poor countries doing the same thing: even though it's legal, they get leaned on by the US gov't because the pharmacy companies are whining about their profits.

See a decent explanation of compulsory licensing here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license

Brazil has fulfilled the "attempts to obtain a licence under reasonable commercial terms must have failed over a reasonable period of time" requirement. As others have mentioned, they have threatened this before. Another nice loophole that was or soon will be closed is that India's patent system only allow a process to be patented, not an end product. This allowed production of AIDS drugs at cost. But of course, India has been under pressure to 'normalize' its patent laws (ie make them the same as US laws) and this loophole will be closed either this year or next. Unfortunate, as the availability of cheap drugs from India has been a major factor in forcing pharmaceutical companies to negotiate prices.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[andymadigan]

I live in Spencerport, NY in Upstate New York. My High School had an abstinence only curriculum. The class considered anything else to be completely unacceptable. This is the public High School. I hope _YOU_ haven't ever been to the U.S., this is very common around here.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Waffle Iron]

Which basically makes it state-sponsored IP-scoffing.

You say that as if "IP" were a God-given right. It's not: "IP" is a collection of government entitlement programs, and what a government gives, a government can take away.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[iamnotaclown]

In other words, Canada.

Don't believe the FUD. Socialized health care is more efficient and cheaper per capita than your broken free market system:

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/204163

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Rich0]

The marginal cost of an Intel CPU might be $10, and the cost to design the CPU production plant was probably $300k, but building that plant probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In this case, the plant design is the NIH, the plant construction is Pharma, and the $10 CPU selling for $500 is the drug. Just because building the plant didn't require as much innovation as the design, doesn't make it cheap...

The NIH doesn't discover drugs. They discover enzymes, mechanisms, etc. Sometimes they come up with lead molecules as well. Most of the time if you gave those molecules to people it would end up killing them, or not working well. Pharma companies spend most of the R&D money figuring out how to make the lead compounds work better, and figuring out if they work at all and are safe. Answering that question costs literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and most of the time the answer is no.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[aurispector]

It's ridiculous that these attitudes still persist. Every time I hear the claim that AIDS is the patient's fault I want to smack someone. There are at least a dozen ways people could contract the disease innocently and unknowingly. Sure, some people take risks and pay the price, but for instance in Africa the infection rates are so high because of ignorance about the disease, not because they are all moral failures.

Merck does have a right to recoup their development costs-after all they have to save up for the next round of drug liability lawsuits like the vioxx fiasco.

Still, they ought to play smarter and drop costs when countries try to negotiate price-the tactic of countries taking a compulsory license is a big weapon against which they have no counter. They could sell AIDS and malaria drugs cheap and look like angels whilst continuing to price gouge for boner pills. Problem solved!

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Acer500]

>> ...having been repeatedly proven not to decrease teen pregnancy at all, but proven to lead to increased incidence of STDs, including AIDS.

References please?
I'm not the OP, but sure, you only have to google around for a bit:

"Teens Need Access to Contraceptives, Not Abstinence Messages, To Reduce Pregnancy, STD Rates, AAP Report Says" (AAP: American Academy of Pediatrics). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?ne wsid=27083

Original report here:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/ full/116/1/281

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[wannasleep]

I'd like to point out that what Brazil did is actually legal under TRIPS. TRIPS is the treaty that regulates Intellectual Property world-wide. The same treaty under which so many other cases are prosecuted. One of the TRIPS provision states that a number of countries can exercise compulsory patenting on pharmaceuticals for a number of years (I believe 15, but I am not sure). It was done to lure many countries into the treaty.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[The_Quinn]

Intellectual property is a form of property rights. These rights are required for humans to survive. Conversely, the abrogation of property rights is a force of destruction in humanity.

Brazil does not respect property rights, therefore the people of Brazil produce very little of any value beyond hand-to-mouth, and therefore their government can do nothing but steal from other countries in a blatant attempt to flout the same rights of individuals that allowed individuals to create the achievements in the first place.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[The_Quinn]

they ought to play smarter and drop costs when countries try to negotiate price-the tactic of countries taking a compulsory license is a big weapon against which they have no counter. Wrong. This is where the government should be stepping in to protect America's interests through a combination of diplomatic means, which could ultimately include sanctions, embargoes, etc. As a poorer country, they have much more to lose from us than we have to gain from them, and it is entirely appropriate to demonstrate that fact to them.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[WCLPeter]

I find it funny to think that just because a person spent what amounts to 1/4 of their life in school to become a doctor, is simply doing it for the money. Particularly when being a doctor is among one of the most difficult professions to get into.

The 20 plus years a person has to spend in school to learn the craft, all the testing, the sleepless nights and grueling schedules. Not to mention the sheer cost of actually going to medical school along with the payback of the loan money in the end; to think they're only doing it for the money is naive.

Oh sure, I'm not stupid, I know some people foolishly put themselves through hell for the sake of the money. Let's face it, doctors make piles of cash. But on the other side of the coin, there are other, much simpler ways for highly intelligent people (which you'd have to be if you actually graduated and became a doctor) to make piles of cash in a much faster time span.

No, it can't simply be possible that people become doctors and put up with all the intensity and hard work because they have a natural desire to help people.

It's great that your relative was able to afford the 100,000 cost for his life saving surgery. I am truly happy for you that your relative is alive and well and got the best care possible for him. I just don't see how much of a life he's going to have though, what with the need to take on extra hours at work or even an extra job just to pay off the medical bills. Sure, he's alive but at what costs to living his actual life.

Contrast that with the Canadian way of doing things. Every single citizen can walk into any hospital in the country and be certain someone will look at them and run tests. If the Doctors find anything life threatening that puts you in imminent danger of dying, you're going to get taken care of right away. However, if they find something potentially life threatening, but you aren't going to die right away, you get to go on the waiting list.

This of course is where our health care system gets all it's "bad" press. People whining because it can be uncomfortable and the negative effects on their lifestyle while waiting to be treated. While Doctors here understand this, because everyone is covered for health care and the resources are finite they need to prioritize care. Doctors assess your condition to determine how dangerous it is and when you need life saving treatment, then they prioritize the waiting list based on that. Minor conditions you will wait quite a while to be treated for as they are often managed quite well with drugs and/or therapy until you have your surgery.

Major conditions will usually get you in faster, and if your condition changes so you are now in imminent danger of dying, you get bumped to the top of the list.

Sure, my taxes are probably a bit higher than yours to pay for our universal health care and I know I will likely be uncomfortable waiting to be treated should I need it. What I do know is that despite all the waiting, I'll eventually get taken care of and be able to go back to my life. What's even more comforting to know is I won't have to potentially lose my house, take on a second job, or leave behind an overwhelming debt for my family. For that kind of security, I don't mind popping a few extra pain pills or enduring a few extra tests.

Pete...

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[Waffle Iron]

God given right? where did that even come from?

Because you called cancelling *one single* patent, an action that could save many thousands of lives (and which they are entitled to do under international law), "IP scoffing". Therefore, you must value the IP at least as dearly as the lives of the thousands who would perish.

The only silver lining in all of this is that poor Brazilian patients will benefit

A "silver lining" is an inferior outcome. I.e, you admit that helping those patients survive was OK, but preserving the pristine sanctity of IP would have been more desireable. Maybe you'd like to fly down there and explain your abstractions to dying patients: "You should be proud that you're giving up your life in order to drive up the market value of AIDS drugs. Your sacrifice could be generating cash flow that spurs research that could one day save the life of somebody else in a richer country, or maybe even solve their erectile dysfunction problems!"

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[MrNaz]

As for the 'value' of saving life, no one has the right to claim another's labor unearned for the sake of their own preservation.

That is true in almost all situations. I can't steal your kidney because mine is failing, nor can I steal your ideas because my business is failing. However, if your idea can be used to save my life without taking anything away from you, buddy, you can be damn sure I'm not going to give two shits about the lawsuit you'll bring when I use it without a license. Poor people can't afford the medication anyway, so it's not like Merck is losing revenue, its just that their ideas are being used by people who otherwise wouldn't have access to the drug at all.

If you think that the rules of property, especially intellectual property, should not be relaxed when human life is at stake or that life itself is a commodity that the free market should be allowed to value in monetary terms, then as I said in my original post: I will fight you tooth and nail until the day I die.

Re:humanity vs capitalism

[nosferatu1001]

Personally I see nothing wrong with making money through prostitution is not a shameing occupation. AS long as you have free choice about it and it is properly regulated, then I see no problem. But then I peronally believe sex between consenting parties is fine.

Finally, you made the classic straw man of suggesting because I liked ONE aspect therefore I must like it all. I agree Holland has problems, however it is a MUCH bettwer country to live in than the US. Much more free, in the ACTUAL versus religious rights idea of it....

youtube

[gargletheape]

you know what else Brazil and Thailand have in common? A boisterous tourism industry and hot girls. Seriously, what does youtube have to do with this story?

Re:youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

as a matter of fact, brazil stopped blocking youtube three days after the ban was actually set. And not all ISPs complied with the ruling, only one, Brasil Telecom, which is responsible for broadbrand in all southern states.

bullshit

[teknopurge]

this is not about humanity. the only reason this drug even exists is becuase money was able to be spent on R&D to create or discover the compound. Brazil has just put another nail in the coffin of innovation by this move: if a company cannot make money from a discovery or invention the amount of both will decline.

Re:bullshit

[geekoid]

Brazil wanted to give them some money.
Mereck said no so Brazil took it to save the lives of its people.
Considering its a global company, They should have taken Brazils offer and looked to Europe and N.America to recover costs.
OTOH, since Merick wouldn't sell to Brazil anyways, there not actually loosing money now, are they?

Re:bullshit

[vidarh]

The other thing is that it's entirely up to Brazil whether or not they want their legal system to even recognize these patents in the first place. Patents aren't a "natural right" in any sense. As copyrights, patents are tools used by the government to encourage innovation for the benefit of the public. If they are being used in ways that harms the public, then it stands to reason that any government that cares about it's people would take action to correct it.

"Black Box" Drugs?

[Kadin2048]

I wonder what the endgame might be out of situations like this.

Right now, my understanding is that to produce and get approval for a drug, you need to release its chemical formula and other information about it.

But I wonder if at some point in the future, if the drug companies get too worried about their profits due to genericization in countries like Thailand and Brazil, that they might try to implement some sort of "drug DRM." Rather than making the composition of the drug open, don't release what's actually in it, and just test it as a 'black box,' show empirically through tests that it's effective and reasonably safe, but dope the actual pills with a lot of random substances that make it difficult to reverse-engineer (or have the actual drug only be something that's produced in the body through subtle combinations of various things in the pill, or keep the methods of producing the various chemicals in the pills a secret). I'm sure there are lots of bizarre ways that the drug companies could think up to protect the compositions.

Now, I'm not saying that any of these schemes would be effective at protecting the composition -- if the market for a generic drug is big enough, the labs in Thailand can probably afford to spend a lot of time with a mass spectrometer/gas chromatograph and unravel it, but that doesn't mean the drug companies wouldn't try, and waste a lot of time and effort in the process.

As we've seen in the battles over digital IP, there are a whole lot of things that can end up as collateral damage in the fights between rightsholders who see the gravy train slowing down, and people who want their products at a lower price than is being offered.

Re:"Black Box" Drugs?

[haluness]

> Rather than making the composition of the drug open, don't release what's actually in it,
> and just test it as a 'black box,' show empirically through tests that it's effective and
> reasonably safe, but dope the actual pills with a lot of random substances that make it
> difficult to reverse-engineer

I really can't forsee any form of DRM for chemical compounds. It's quite like DRM for music - at one point the music has to be played on a speaker. Similarly, if you're going to make a drug, you're going to have to give the pill out at which point you have the whole field of analytical chemistry (mass spec, HPLC etc) at your disposal!

Furthermore, adding random substances to it, doesn't really hinder the identification process - they'd just show up as separate peaks on the spectrum. In addition randomly adding substances to a drug mixture would probably mess up pharmacokinetics which would have to be restudied all over again.

Unfortunately the chemical world is a little bit messier than the digital world :)

Re:"Black Box" Drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact there are at least two such drugs. Premarin is actually made from Pregnant Mare Urine (get it) by a process that is a trade secret. No one is entirely sure which of the components of the final product are active and which aren't. As a result, last I checked (a couple of years ago), no one had successfully developed a generic. A similar situation exists for Thalidomide (which is now a very effective treatment for Multiple Myeloma and a somewhat less effective treatment for other cancers). The drug is in fact a pro-drug that is only active when metabolized by the liver. Unfortunately, the liver generates >100 different metabolites, some of which are very short-lived. No one actually knows which of these is active. As a result, development of analogs (which I have been involved in) has been significantly hampered.
P.S. those who say that FDA has anything to do with funding for clinical trials have no idea what they are talking. Typically, a company pays for ALL therapy-related medical care for trial participants, they pay for data managers at treatment centers, they pay for the physicians who treat the patients, they pay for tests, they pay their own data managers, their own trials managers, and finally, THE DRUG COMPANY pays the FDA to review their application (through user fees). In fact, I seem to recall having read recently that the approval process at FDA actually generates surplus revenue. Finally, during the trials process, before manufacturing is mass scale, drug costs can be hundreds of dollars a dose. By the time one factors in that only a fraction of drugs that begin trials are actually approved, it is easy to imagine drug approval costing hundreds of millions of dollars (even though the pivotal trial(s) itsel "only" cost ~$100,000,000--~10,000/patient * ~1000 patients.)

nonsense

[wizardforce]

what happened was this: merck had the AIDS drug and Brazil tried to negotiate it at what they could afford, merck declined, Brazil then told merck to screw themselves and got the drug anyway. it isn't so much an attack on merck's ability to make money off its own research as it is the idiot practice of denying DYING people medical treatment for the sake of said profit. moral of story: better to negotiate then to be bypassed.

I live in Brazil, Youtube was never blocked here.

[had3l]

I remember seeing that "Brazil blocks Youtube" thing on slashdot, but seriously, I tested it back then, and there was no block, I talked to everyone I know, and they also noted no block. Not that one wasn't issued though, it probably was never enforced.

It was a BS case anyway, it was a public beach, everyone was there to see them having sex. If anyone was breaking the law, they were. Of course, with the justice system here as corrupt and moronic as it is, those kinds of rulings aren't surprising. Believe me though, 100% of the Brazilian people would be against any sort of ban.

Re:The easy way out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they're too busy farming your coffee and sewing your clothes for $3 a month?

Idiot.

Innovation is pretty safe

[TimTucker]

As they say: necessity is the mother of innovation. As long as we have a need for medicine, someone's going to do the research to look for it. It may become less easy to justify spending millions in funding and make millions in profits off of discoveries, but that doesn't mean that innovation will stop.

YouTube vs. 100-million AIDS victims???

[Anonymous Coward]

This move gives Brazil one more thing in common with Thailand, both of which have blocked YouTube.

This is a warped comparison... AIDS will hill hundreds of millions of people in our lifetime. YouTube is a floofy website. AIDS will still be a problem in 20 years. YouTube probably won't exist.

How are these two situations related, exactly? Are you trying to make some comparison because both involve "Intellectual Property"? If so, you failed.

Re:The easy way out.

[frakfrakfrak]

So let me ask the obvious question that no one else will. Why didn't Brazil do the research, create it's own AIDS drug, and accept liability for any consequences?

Because while they did that, thousands of people would get AIDS and thousands of people would die. Considering just how much of meds research is actually done on the government's dime through grants or work done in universities, the whole "We'd never have money for research if we weren't charging you your median income to live" aspect of AIDS drugs is pure evil.

Besides, even though they're not White Anglo-Saxon American Protestants, most Brazilians are people (some, of course, are special haircuts in your no-no zone), and if I have to choose between a lot of people dying and a bunch of lying thieves (converting gov't research money into private intellectual property for mega-corporations is evil in my opinion) getting richer, well, I'm going to pick the people (some of whom are always also going to be lying thieves), because I'm like that.

Honestly, though, it's the 21st century. As a race, humanity can do so much more for each other than this. Shrill cries of, "Let's give Merck our cash!" or "Pure capitalism would have fixed this!" just bother me. Capitalism is a good system, but it isn't magical, and we should try to avoid using it to price out a human life, or its span. Can we always avoid that? No, we're not on Star Trek. But it's nice to occasionally give it a try.

This is a very slippery slope -when does this end?

[spineboy]

These countries are treading on a slippery slope. At what point is it OK now to not pay for the hard work of other people, or to begin to directly steal from them? If this happens enough the company will go bankrupt as correctly pointed out by the parent comment. There will always be someone else who can justify why their need is to get/steal/borrow what they need to a greater and greater extent.
Yes I know that giant pharm firms spend a lot on advertising, but it also costs approximately one Billion dollars to get a single new drug to the marketplace (that's $1,000,000,000 !!)

Pricing is a problem for the third world countries, probably because it takes so many resources to make that product.
Now please pay attention - I'm not saying that Brazil is unjustified in it's taking of the drug and helping those people, but rather that there needs to be some limits so that this behavior is not abused, and ruins it for everyone. This sounds like a good problem for the U.N.

National Socialism vs. fascism

[tepples]

All I see now is a huge shift to National Socialism no that's not socialism. [...] the type of government your thinking of is called 'fascism' National Socialism is composed of fascism with racial nationalism.

Re:Non-Profit drug companies

[SharpFang]

Won't happen, because the companies will spend a lot of money on lobbying against it. If it was created, it would mean the end of them, so they'd do whatever in their power to prevent it.

Not without instructive precedent in the US

[Wdi]

Year 2001: 5 (five) US citizens die in Anthrax scare. US government immediately starts proceedings for compulsory license for Cipro, wrestling the patent rights away from foreign company and competitor Bayer. This stance is widely praised as proactive and protecting the precious lives of US citizens.

Year 2007: Tens of thousand of people die in Brazil each year from AIDS because they cannot afford patented medication. Action from Brazil to force compulsory licensing is widely denounced as destroying the worldwide pharma industry, especially by US commentators.

Well...

Re:Not without instructive precedent in the US

[kmac06]

From your link: "This quantity was far greater than the supply, and Bayer lacked the capacity to produce such a large quantity in a timely manner."

Sounds like the manufacturers couldn't produce the drugs, so the government stepped in to ramp up production. Not exactly what you made it sound like.

Re:This is a very slippery slope -when does this e

[MojoRilla]

Stop believing big pharma's FUD.

There are several significant factors undercutting this supposed billion dollar price tag. The first is that AIDS research has received significant public funding, and second is that antiretroviral drugs have the shortest time to approval of any class of drugs, approximately half the time of normal clinical trials (the mean time for antiretrovirals is 44.6 months, compared to an industry average of 87.4 months).

See this report from Doctors Without Boarders for more information.

Re:This is a very slippery slope -when does this e

[CokeBear]

At what point is it OK now to not pay for the hard work of other people

The people who did the work got paid. Its the corporation who is getting ripped off, not any people.

Re:This is a very slippery slope -when does this e

[melikamp]

A-haha, haha... [tear] I would like some of that stuff you are smoking.

These countries are treading on a slippery slope. At what point is it OK now to not pay for the hard work of other people, or to begin to directly steal from them?

Mentioning stealing is just a troll. And it is perfectly OK not to pay people when they do not work for you. I live in US, and even here I believe that these people do not work for me. I'll pay them for the research results when I can tell them what to do. Why should Brazil or anyone else suffer if they think that medical patents are stupid? If medical patents are as awesome as you think, shouldn't we just wait a few years and see the Brazilian economy shatter? Oh, wait, you say, patents do not work this way. Americans will actually be in a crippling disadvantage if they have patents and no one else does. Well, duh. That is because sharing knowledge is more productive than creating scarcity where there is none.

The State giveth, the State taketh

[bidule]

Patents are government-granted monopolies. It is not an absolute right and has to be balanced against the need of the People.

Reading this news as a fight between corporate greed and governmental greed is the wrong way to look at that. Right or wrong, you try to choose the lesser evil. Everyday the little citizen get crushed for reason of State, for once it is a big pharma that pays the price.

BTW, the pharma spammer are quick on the button today. Disgraceful.

You would have a point...

[Rix]

If drug companies invested a significant percentage of their revenue on research. They don't (about 5%). It's *far* more efficient to give the money that would be spend on non-generic drugs to university research programs.

Re:Here's how to nip this in the bud

[Microlith]

If American wanted to really do what's best for the world and its self then it should be spending trillions on things like developing vaccines and then giving the technology away for free.

Indeed. And when we're bankrupt we can go back to the rest of the world for help, right?

Right?

Sickening display of capitalism

[Durzel]

I have nothing against capitalism as a rule, and I'm not naive enough to believe in some twee fantasy World where life-saving medications are free for everyone all around the World. That said, setting a price point on what is an ESSENTIAL medication of $1.59 per pill when the same company already sells the same product to another country at $0.65 per pill is disgusting. Merck are (or were) essentially holding the Brazilian peoples lives to ransom.

If Merck can afford to sell the product to Thailand for $0.65 and still make a profit (clearly as an Indian company can sell it for $0.45 and turn a profit themselves) then there is no reason whatsoever other than pure capitalistic greed why they could not have given the same offer to the Brazilian government. Don't forget we're not talking about the variable domain costs of marketing and staffing, the government is the customer - how the Brazilian government then choose to distribute/market the treatment is their decision and at their cost.

There are a great many products around the World that are sold for different prices to different regions, but in practically all cases you can permit the corporations involved some latitude simply because the products they're selling are luxury or otherwise non-essential. Gouging a customer with a 300%+ markup on a life-saving drug when you know the customer/market HAS to have it is disgusting.

Let's not forget that the research dollars that went into developing this particular drug came from U.S citizens.

I don't think this is a sign of "erosion of respect in American patents", this is after all the first time the Brazilian government has even invoked the power of "eminent domain".

Meh, what can you do?

[d34thm0nk3y]

From the Article:

Other countries, including Canada and Italy, have also used a clause in World Trade Organization rules to flout drug patents in the name of public health.

Under WTO rules, countries can issue a "compulsory license" to manufacture or buy generic versions of patented drugs deemed critical to public health.

bullshit

[nanosquid]

the Brazilian government has decided to take a 'compulsory license' to the patent, and get the drug from a factory in India. This compulsory license is basically a way to take the patent by eminent domain.

A "compulsory license" is not the same as "taking a patent", it's a compulsory license, as the name implies.

Furthermore, the term "eminent domain" simply doesn't apply to patents because patents aren't "private property". Patents are temporary monopolies granted by the government for a specific purpose, and revoking that grant when the patent doesn't accomplish its purpose is not the same as taking away "private property". The only thing the government is ultimately obligated to observe in the granting and revocation of patents is that it is done non-discriminatorily.

Trying to equate a patent grant with private property is ideological bullshit; don't fall for it.

...because Bayer couldn't make enough of it.

[cirby]

The only company that could make it under license could only make a certain amount per year, and had no capacity to ramp up. They screwed around, claiming they could (but did nothing in particular). If they'd stepped forward and produced enough for the need, the US government would have happily paid the price.

The compulsory license wasn't about cost. It was about capacity. And the US DID pay a license fee to the company, instead of outright theft, as Brazil is doing.

On the other hand, with the amounts involved, if it was just a matter of a billion dollars to develop an AIDs drug, why didn't Brazil create their own and license it for free?

Oh, yeah - that billion dollars was for a SUCCESSFUL drug. They kinda left out the other hundred compounds they looked at, and the ten to twelve they actually tested, before the drug companies found that one drug that worked.

Then you get the ones that work, but turn up side effects when they get past trials. Vioxx, for example. major drug, well-liked by 99% of its users, and it wasn't until after they got it out into the open market that the (theoretical) side effects were noticed - and they were, truly, minor for pretty much everyone (tiny increases in health risks, and no actual deaths or injuries tied to the drug). And it was banned. Huge loss for the company.

Total actual cost to find a high-quality, high RISK new drug for a major disease, with full trials and liability coverage? Closer to five or TEN billion dollars...

Cost to produce some of these drug combinations? That's another story. Some of these chemicals take huge investments in machinery to even make, and the precursor chemicals alone put the price at ten to twenty cents per pill. Actual manufacturing can push the cost to simply produce one pill for some drugs into the multi-dollar range.

A small correction

[blueish yellow]

The drug's name is Efavirenz not Elfavirenz. The stupid troll couldn't even get the name right.

Merck's spending breakdown

[compumike]

From their latest annual report, for fiscal year 2006: (all numbers in millions of dollars)

• Sales revenue: 22,636.0

So where does the money go?

• Manufacturing costs: 6,001.1
• Marketing & adminstrative costs: 8,165.4
• R&D: 4,782.9

Only 20% of the price of each pill goes toward future research and development... Marketing & administrative costs are double that. Ouch.

Re:humanity vs capitalism BS

[kurt555gs]

This is really total bull shit. Drug companies spend very little on R&D and most of their expenses are marketing, legal, insurance, and obscene bonuses for executives.

Eminent domain is needed for cases like this where the need of the people outweigh the need for a ceo to trim his jet interior in pure gold.

Good for Brazil

Link to average billion dollar new drug cost

[spineboy]

Here's a Kaiser study - the$ billion dollar amount is only the R&D /FDA trial costs. What about when companies get sued by lawyers for billions of dollars for crap lawsuits - I.E. Dow chemical for silicone breast implants - bankrupted for no definite scientific evidence, and now people are using them again.

  The Vioxx lawsuit is costing Merck between 4 and 30 billion$ for some shaky scientific evidence. There were perhaps 300-400 people who doctors though had deaths DIRECTLY contributable to Vioxx - now remind you , many of these patients had crippling arthritis, pre-existing cardiac conditions, were over 70 years of age. I've had patients tell me that they take up to 4-5 times the recommended doses of pain medicine sometimes. Do you think the lawyers, or clients mention that - of course not - they want their easy money. Do you think many of those people would have died anyway? - probably.

IF you are involved in medicine, and have some money, you will get sued. Every doctor and pharmaceutical company does, and the cost gets passed on to everyone else in the form of a 65 cent pill, as opposed to a 30 cent pill. THese class action lawsuits make multi millions for many law firms, because enough people in menial jobs don't want to work anymore , and are "injured, or think they are" (actual line I heard from an ambulance chaser commercial).

Link to Kaiser/Tufts study supporting the billion dollar R&D/FDA cost per new drug below.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_ind ex.cfm?DR_ID=17747