Pharmaceutical News 2.0

by Jeremiah Norris

Ministers at the World Health Assembly in Geneva next week will be spending unprecedented amount of money for fighting diseases in Africa. The US Congress has just committed $50 billion over the next five years to combating HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, while the Global Fund for these diseases will probably add $25 billion. This is a lot of money and a lot of talking. But what won’t be discussed is the fact that many of the drugs that will be bought will end up doing AIDS, TB and malaria patients more harm than good.

Part of the problem in poor countries is the alarming amount of fake drugs . In 2007, the WHO reported that 30 per cent of all medicines sold in Africa were counterfeit, “killing thousands”. An Indian pharmaceutical association said this week that 20 per cent are fakes in India itself while the OECD says India supplies 75 per cent of the world’s fake and sub-standard drugs.

The WHO established the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce in 2006. The problem, however, is not limited to outright fakes. IMPACT needs to turn its gaze towards sub-standard drugs manufactured in Africa and Asia that rarely meet the very high standards of safe and effective medicines. Nor are they tested by independent regulatory authorities.

If an AIDS, TB or malaria drug is sub-standard, it allows the virus to mutate and drug resistance to develop. This will eventually make the drug useless for the entire population and even fatal.

The outrage is that the Global Fund and WHO have been knowingly promoting sub-standard drugs.

When procuring drugs, the Global Fund follows WHO guidelines so the Fund’s “Option C” rule allows the procurement of drugs that have not been reviewed and tested by a credible regulator (such as the US Food & Drug Administration). These are “investigatory” drugs, which no doctor in a rich country would ever prescribe because of the risk to patients and of drug resistance.

When the WHO and the Global Fund approved Option C, they reasoned it would allow them to buy from mainly Indian companies at a cheaper rate than branded generic (copied, off-patent) and patented drugs.

But what they skimped on price, they lost in quality: According to a February 2007 report by the Global Fund, half the drugs purchased under Option C did not comply with the Fund’s Quality Assurance Policy.

Read the rest of this article on what is being done to combat fake drugs here.

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15 May 2008
Press Release

Today, Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander, launched a powerful new health alliance which could save the lives of 10.5 million people in developing countries each year by 2015.

International institutions, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, governments, civil society and business have joined together to form the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) to improve the health and lives of millions of people. Currently one in three people around the world still don’t have access to the basic medicines they need to fight illness and ten million children die each year for want of cheap and effective drugs.

Up to a third of medicines on the market in developing countries are fakes and a recent study published by the American Enterprise Institute found that a third of malaria drugs sold in six African cities either did not contain high enough levels of active ingredient, or did not dissolve properly.

Douglas Alexander said:

“Too many people die needlessly because they can’t get the medicines they need. There are currently 2 billion people around the world who do not have access to affordable medical services. A lot of medicines are not affordable, they are of poor quality, or they are simply not available.

“The problems of price, quality and availability can be tackled by improving transparency and access to information. MeTA will provide citizens, health care workers and others with information to challenge corruption, excessive pricing and waste. We now have a common approach and by working together millions of lives could be saved.”

Read the rest this press release on the new alliance creating access to medicine, Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA).

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This week Switzerland will become ground zero for the future of health policy in Africa. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) intergovernmental working group is meeting in Geneva to discuss public health, medical innovation and intellectual property.

Many participants are expected to express their support for efforts to undermine patent protections for drugs. In doing so, however, these attendees ignore the more fundamental problem facing poor African nations — dilapidated healthcare infrastructure.

The anti-patent crowd believes that patents keep prices high and drugs out of the reach of the poor. It blames pharmaceutical firms for the suffering of the impoverished and calls on developing nations to employ patent-revoking compulsory licences that encourage the production of cheaper generics.

But even if medicine were available for free, as it often is in poor nations, dysfunctional institutions and personnel ensure that the needy can’t access it.

Despite unprecedented quantities of monetary aid to the ministries of health of many African countries, health systems on the continent have languished. Between 1990 and 2005 development assistance for health increased from $2,5-billion to more than $13-billion. Overall about 10% of Africa’s healthcare expenditure is financed by donor aid.

And yet more than 50% of Africans lack access to essential medicines, according to the WHO. Around the world more than 10-million children in developing countries die unnecessarily from diseases that are easily preventable and cheap to treat, such as diarrhoea, measles and malaria. Furthermore, up to 80% of Africans have to pay for treatment from their own pockets. In short, public health systems are failing to deliver.

Read the rest of this article on drug patents in Africa.

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