GlaxoSmithKline has been urged by leading UK and international organisations to pools its patents on HIV medications in order to help millions of people suffering from the condition in the developing world.
15 groups, including the Stop Aids Campaign , Unicef and Medicins San Frontieres wrote an open letter asking the UK’s biggest pharmaceutical company to join the patent pool being created by Unitaid. The pool aims to improve access to AIDS and HIV medications for patients in poorer countries.
If patents for the medications were pooled, then cheap generic versions of the medications could be made with no legal issues or any delays for the manufacturers. Currently the pharmaceutical companies have a 20 year monopoly on the drugs and have been accused of selling them for prices far out of reach of most countries in the developing world, many of whom are being crippled by the AIDS epidemic.
Andrew Witty, Chief Executive of GlaxoSmithKline, told the Guardian recently that he had very little information about Unitaid and denied that he had already said no to the idea, as no one had presented him with a concrete proposition.
He added that GSK was doing a lot to help HIV sufferers in developing countries, funding research into drugs for children and he said he was willing for generic copies of HIV meds to be made under license.
He explained that he had cut the prices of drugs for poor countries to a quarter of the price charged to the developed world and said that a patent pool of his own had been launched, studying compounds that might help neglected diseases, which he does not consider HIV to be.
In their letter, the 15 organisations said that there was a “woeful” lack of innovation when it came to treatments for children and Alan Smith of the Stop Aids Campaign said that the patent pool would be the best chance of increasing access to medicines for HIV on the scale needed for universal access.