There have been lots of interesting developments with the patent pool campaign and specifically with the movements of the pharmaceutical companies.

When the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on AIDS published its ‘Treatment Timebomb’ report in the middle of July, it recommended the UNITAID patent pool as a way to increase access to HIV medication.

On the same day GlaxoSmithKline announced extra money for AIDS and a licensing agreement with a South African generic company. But Andrew Witty, GSKs’ CEO argued that “HIV is not a neglected disease… I can’t see how a patent pool in this particular area would change things dramatically.”

Lots of people disagree with Mr Witty; including MSF, the Stop AIDS Campaign, the UK government, and big pharma company Gilead. We have seen one-off gestures like the one GSK have announced in the past, and we know they won’t solve the problem.

In an article on Wednesday 12th August in the Guardian Witty claimed that all he knew about the UNITAID patent pool was what he had read in the paper; even though UNITAID’s letters of invitation to meet with Witty have gone unanswered since March this year.

However GSK is increasingly looking like the odd one out, as both Gilead and Tibotec are engaging very constructively with the UNITAID, and the senior vice president of Gilead, Gregg Alton went as far as to say that “UNITAID’s patent pool can play a critical role in expanding access to antiretroviral treatment for patients around the world by encouraging the development of new fixed-dose combinations and paediatric formulations, lowering prices, while respecting intellectual property.”

The coming months we will be increasing the pressure on GSK to catch up with reality, but we’ve got a huge task ahead of us!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Campaign News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.