Cheaper AIDS drugs to be made locally

People living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa could soon be able to access cheaper anti-AIDS drugs under a new project which will manufacture generic medication in the country. According to a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) statement, the soon-to-be launched "Initiative Pharmaceutical Technology Transfer (IPTT)" will not only provide for the country's public sector needs, but also for other African countries struggling with HIV/AIDS and epidemics such as TB and malaria. "The IPTT will establish a publicly controlled, transparent, sustainable system under which affordable, quality medicines are produced in required quantities, for Africa, by African countries themselves," the statement said. The project will be launched in South Africa in mid-May and later extended to Ethiopia, followed by several other African countries with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The first tablets will be available next year, Andre Kudlinsky, a chemical engineer at the DTI told PlusNews. Details about the IPTT are not yet available and it remains unclear how the initiative will be of immediate benefit to HIV-positive South Africans, as the government has yet to provide antiretroviral drugs for the public sector. The government maintains that the "cost of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs remains high and the cost of essential tests to monitor those on therapy is also considerable." Although the IPTT was an important step, it would have "no impact" in the country without better coordination between the DTI and the department of health, activists said. "The drugs will end up in an isolated storehouse which people cannot access," alleged Medecins Sans Frontieres administrator, Emi Maclean. Nathan Geffen, spokesman for the AIDS lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign, told PlusNews: "It sounds promising. I hope this is just not spin and there is something concrete." An existing initiative by South African drug-maker, Aspen Pharmacare, to locally produce generic ARVs had been "of no use", as the government had not yet taken up the offer, Geffen added. Nevertheless, this should not deter "bona fide" pharmaceutical companies from locally manufacturing generic ARVs, Linda Pretorius, Aspen Pharmacare CEO, told PlusNews. The local company was granted voluntary licences by GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb to produce generic versions of their ARV drugs in South Africa. "Let's not wait. We have to get them developed so that we're in a position to supply them when the government rolls out their programme," Pretorius said. The costs of setting up laboratories and the equipment to do this, however, were "extremely high for developing countries", she admitted. According to Pretorius, it was "frustrating" that countries with an existing infrastructure such as South Africa, had not taken more advantage of the World Trade Organisation's Doha declaration, which allows developing countries to use generic drugs in times of health crises, overriding the patents held by major pharmaceutical companies.