Pharmacia AIDS access program

PHA said it will grant non-exclusive licenses for its Rescriptor delavirdine HIV drug to generic pharmaceutical companies that agree to manufacture and supply the product to the world's poorest countries. The initiative, a partnership with the International Dispensary Association Foundation, is intended to serve as a model for expanding access to patented drugs, PHA said. Under the not-for-profit pilot program, PHA will transfer proprietary manufacturing technology and legal rights to manufacture delavirdine to IDA. IDA will be authorized to give competing generic manufacturers rights to sell the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor in countries with a per capita Gross National Income of less than $1,200 or an HIV infection rate of more than 1%. The program covers 78 countries with a total population of 3.8 billion, PHA said.

The out-licensing initiative is based on a proposal described by PHA VP Michael Friedman and colleagues in the current issue of The Lancet. The plan separates markets in poor and rich countries, "promoting access to affordable medicines for the world's poor, while reaffirming patents as indispensable for successful pharmaceutical research," according to Friedman and colleagues. ...