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DEFYING PFIZER'S PROFITEERING

Updated 11/30/00

TAC: DEFIANCE CAMPAIGN AGAINST PATENT ABUSE

UPDATE:

  • November 30, 2000 (Cape Town) Medicines Control Council grants a conditional Section 21 exemption for the distribution of generic Fluconazole in South Africa.

    • TAC Press Statement.

  • November 28, 2000 (Cape Town) A Public Relations Ceremony for World AIDS Day? TAC asks when will the pills reach people?

    • TAC Press Statement.

  • November 20, 2000 (Cape Town) TAC calls upon the Medicines Control Council to allow for importantion of generic Fluconazole.

    • TAC Press Statement.

SUMMARY:

    In October 2000, the South African AIDS activist group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) launched a Defiance Campaign Against Patent Abuse by smuggling fluconazole, an otherwise unaffordable drug, into the country. TAC is working in collaboration with South African physicians who will administer the drug, and who support the groups' efforts to secure access to life-saving AIDS medications. Fluconazole is used to treat cryptococcal meningitis, a painful brain infection that infects TK percent of people with HIV and thrush, or candidiasis, an extremely common AIDS-related illness. The TAC Defiance Campaign is the latest effort by South African activists to access fluconazole and other essential, life-saving medications used to treat HIV and AIDS-related illnesses. In spite of previous efforts (see below) of drug donations, Pfizer has taken no substantive action to make its drug available. The Defiance Campaign is an important, precedent-setting challenge to the pharmaceutical industry and the intellectual property laws used to protect its profits.

DEMANDS:

  • TAC challenges Pfizer, the pharmaceutical industry and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association to take action against them for defying the patent on fluconzaole and for preparing to defy the patent on all HIV/AIDS drugs.
  • TAC will stop defying the unjust trade laws with fluconazole once Pfizer has lowered the price to under R4.00 (U.S.$0.57) and its "donation" is implemented with no restrictions.
  • TAC asks all civil society organizations to endorse and help develop the Defiance Campaign against Patent Abuse and AIDS Profiteering.
ACT NOW:
Contact Pfizer's world headquarters:
William Steere, CEO
Phone: 212- 573-1000 (switchboard)
Fax: 212-573-7851
Jim Brigaitis, Team Leader Diflucan
Phone: 212-573-7789
Fax: 212-573-3253
235 East 42nd St., NY, NY 10017-5755

FLUCONAZOLE FACTS

  • Fluconazole, sold under the brand name Diflucan, is widely-available in the United States as an antifungal drug.
  • In South Africa, fluconazole is currently priced at U.S.$8.92 per pill.
  • In Thailand, a generic version of the same drug costs U.S.$0.29 per pill.
  • In South Africa, where an estimated 4.2 million people are infected with HIV, the average monthly wage is approximately US$7.00.

BACKGROUND

    In March, 2000, TAC and its U.S. ally, the Health GAP coaltion challenged Pfizer to lower the price of fluconazole, or to release the patent on the drug, which would allow South Africa to legally produce a generic version of the drug, or to import a low-cost, generic version from another country. Both generic production and third-party importation are legal under international trade laws.

    In April, in response to international activist pressure, Pfizer broke news in April of a restricted "donation program" not to the South Africa activists or the South African government, but to the Wall Street Journal. Pfizer offered to provide fluconazole to HIV-infected individuals with cryptococcal meningitis who could not afford the drug. There was no indication of how long the donation would last, or how much of the drug would be made available. The offer has since proved to be an empty public relations strategy on the part of a multibillion dollar corporation.

    Eight months later, Pfizer has not shipped a single fluconazole tablet to South Africa.

    International relief organizations, including Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, have called such donations unrealistic solution to the global inequities in access to essential medications. Pfizer has failed to meet the South African health minister's request for a price reduction, a more sustainable solution. Nor has Pfizer taken steps to finalize arrangements for implementing its original offer. Its donation is a public relations exercise to disguise profiteering.

    People in South Africa continue to die from conditions that can be treated, and prevented, with fluconazole.

RESOURCES

Send additional information for this page to info@healthgap.org.

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