ACTION SIGN-ON to Statement of the Brazilian Civil Society regarding Brazilian Negotiations

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

Please forward the following statement to your national and

international networks.

The Brazilian Network for Peoples Integration (Rebrip) is requesting

national and international support for the following statement. If your

organization wishes to support this statement, send an email to

abia@... where the coordination for signatures is organized. The

statement will be forwarded to the Government representative within days.

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Open Statement of the Civil Society regarding the Brazilian Negotiations

for Voluntary License for AIDS drugs.

For the past 4 years, Brazil has at numerous occasions announced to be

ready to issue compulsory licenses for anti-retroviral drugs that are used

in the Brazilian Aids Programme. But until today it has not done so despite

the fact that the Aids programmes budget is increasingly under pressure.

Today 80 % of the budget of the Aids National Programme's for ARVs is spent

on imported patented drugs. 70% is spent on the purchase of four patented

drugs, Lopinavir/Ritonavir, Tenofovir, Efavirenz and Nelfinavir. Brazilian

public and private companies are only producing 7 out of 16 drugs that are

used in the tri-therapy while there is capacity to produce all of the

needed medicines.

Since 15th of March 2005 the Minister of Health is in negotiation to obtain

a voluntary license from Abbott, Gilead and Merck respectively for

Lopinavir/Ritonavir, Tenofovir and Efavirenz The Minister of Health gave

that day an ultimatum to Abbott, Gilead and Merck to transfer the

technology of production to Brazilian Public Laboratories. Should the

companies not be willing to do this on a voluntary basis, a compulsory

license would be issued. In both cases a royalty would be paid to the

patent holders.

Three weeks after the deadline set by the minister there is still no clear

indication that the companies are willing to come to an agreement.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Health has not taken action.

We fail to understand the lack of action by the Brazilian authorities. At

the international level, Brazil is a key defender of the use of the

flexibilities in TRIPS and the Doha declaration on TRIPS and Public Health.

Still when it comes to taking action at home Brazil turns out to be a tiger

with no teeth. The flexibilities in patent law are designed to give

governments the tools to act.

We want Brazil to take action now by issuing compulsory licenses for the

medicines that are needed to sustain its successful AIDS programme and to

allow for the export of the medicines that are produced in Brazil to other

developing countries who need them.

End of Statement