'Medicines kept out the hands of the poor'
One of the most controversial drugs in recent years is Sovaldi, which treats hepatitis C. It costs $1000 a pill and a 12-week course costs almost $100000 in the US. File photo
Image by: Gallo Images/Thinkstock
The cost of medicine is too high and too few drugs are developed for diseases that affect the poor.
"The market has failed us. We cannot rely on pharmaceutical companies," said Riaz Tayob, the Southern and East African Trade Institute's programme co-ordinator, at the UN hearings on access to medicine held in Johannesburg yesterday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon set up the panel so both experts and patients could find solutions to the problem of access.
One of the most controversial drugs in recent years is Sovaldi, which treats hepatitis C. It costs $1000 (about R16000) a pill and a 12-week course costs almost $100000 in the US.
The Treatment Action Campaign staged a picket for cheaper medical drugs outside the talks.
One of the ways to increase development of new drugs and lower prices, said TAC, was to change the way research was paid for. It said too often drug companies recouped development and research costs by assuming a monopoly status.
Instead, said TAC, governments or medical aids should give "substantial money" upfront to pharmaceutical companies to pay for drug development. Without a monopoly or patent, multiple companies could manufacture the drug - resulting in lower prices.
James Packard Love, the director of Knowledge Ecology International, a US NGO, said: "Drug companies need [a substantial amount of] money to keep investing in risky research to discover drugs."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon set up the panel so both experts and patients could find solutions to the problem of access.
One of the most controversial drugs in recent years is Sovaldi, which treats hepatitis C. It costs $1000 (about R16000) a pill and a 12-week course costs almost $100000 in the US.
The Treatment Action Campaign staged a picket for cheaper medical drugs outside the talks.
One of the ways to increase development of new drugs and lower prices, said TAC, was to change the way research was paid for. It said too often drug companies recouped development and research costs by assuming a monopoly status.
Instead, said TAC, governments or medical aids should give "substantial money" upfront to pharmaceutical companies to pay for drug development. Without a monopoly or patent, multiple companies could manufacture the drug - resulting in lower prices.
James Packard Love, the director of Knowledge Ecology International, a US NGO, said: "Drug companies need [a substantial amount of] money to keep investing in risky research to discover drugs."
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