Paris, 10/05/2000

Today May 10, 2000, about thirty Act Up-Paris activists jammed Pfizer's world Viagra plant in Touraine, France, into a standstill. This action means to denounce the company's pricing policy, which is directly responsible for the death of thousands of People With AIDS living in developing countries.

On March 13, 2000, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a South African coalition of People With AIDS, officially asked Pfizer Pharmaceuticals to dramatically reduce the price of its AIDS drug fluconazole, or else to grant TAC a voluntary license to manufacture a cheaper, generic version of it.

In South Africa about 4.5 million people are living with HIV ; more than 100,000 succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in 1999. Fluconazole (brand-names DiflucanAE or TriflucanAE) is a drug which can cure two of the most frequent opportunistic infections : cryptococcal meningitis, and thrush. Survival prognosis for untreated meningitis is less than four weeks (UNAIDS).

Fluconazole is sold under patent in South Africa at a wholesale price of R57 (US$9) per 200 mg capsule to the private sector and around R37 (US$6) to public services. The annual cost of the treatment for preventing meningitis amounts to R20,000 per person per year (US$3,160) - leaving aside all other associated medical cost (MSF).

It is blantanly unaffordable for most people.

Generic versions of fluconazole are available from India at R7.50 and from Thailand at R2.98, which represent 5 to 10% of Pfizer's price in SA. In these countries Pfizer's patent isn't being enforced and the drug is made by generic drug manufacturers. It is, however, illegal right now for any generic maker to sell the drug elsewhere. Still, as Pfizer's drug is still under patent protection in South Africa , at the present time there is no generic fluconazole available there, and the company enjoys a perfect monopoly over the market.

Under international pressure, last April 3rd, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals announced that it would start supplying Diflucan/Fluconazole to all South Africans who cannot afford the drug and suffer from cryptococcal meningitis. This shows that the time is over when drug companies could content themselves with looking the other way while their pricing policy kills thousands. By finally agreeing to donating the drug, Pfizer recognizes its responsability for the death of non-treated people. It also shows that drug companies are able to reduce prices dramatically ; they can even afford to give drugs away for free without endangering profits. This is possible because Pfizer, like all proprietray drug companies, reaps its considerable profits from the developed countries' market alone. Besides, Pfizer sold more than US$1.2 bn worth of DiflucanAE last year, and the drug is over ten years old.

But still a donation is not a global long-term solution for treating People With AIDS living in destitute countries. It only serves the cynical purpose of making treatment-access depend on a mutinational's good will. Pfizer has incidentally still not clearly stated how many people would have access to its DiflucanAE donations exactly, nor for how long, nor on which conditions. This announcement was above all a means for the company to make more time, defuse international pressure, and avoid addressing the real issues.

In Nicaragua, where there is no generic fluconazole either, the only available drug, marketed by Pfizer, is priced at $16 per 150 mg capsule. Thousands of People With AIDS there have no access to the treatment, and still, when they were asked, Pfizer would not even consider donations or price reductions. The government of Uganda - another heavy AIDS-burden country - has not even been dignified by Pfizer with a reponse to its donation request.

Poor countries need more sustainable and constructive solutions than this kind of opportunistic corporate charity. The only thing that Pfizer has demonstrated with this donation announcement, is its cynicism and its paranoia at the idea of losing monopoly over fluconazole in South Africa. Yet again, profits are put ahead of people's lives. Act Up, along with many other activist groups all over the world currently fighting this evil trend, will not let Pfizer get away with this.

Pfizer must publicly commit to assuring sustainable access to fluconazole for all People With AIDS living in poor countries. In South Africa but also everywhere that it is necessary, Pfizer must dramatically reduce prices and adapt to local purchasing power, or else accept for generics to be resorted to.

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