Por: GTPI
In Brazil, Tenofovir is used by some 64,000 AIDS patients and 1,500 hepatitis patients. By now this medicine is the second most expensive in the Aids coktail. The annoucement of the national production was made on 9th february by the Ministry of Health (MoH). Initially, the production cost of the drug will be the same as the international version (R$ 4.02), but in five years an estimated savings of $ 440 million are expected. More important than relief on public outlay is the incentive to lower prices, says Zich Moyses, Ministry of Health member. "The great advantages of domestic production are internalizing the technology and to increase competitiveness in the sector, " he said. The manufacturing will be done by the official laboratory Fundação Ezequiel Dias (Funed). With this measure, Brazil is going to produce 10 of the 20 drugs used in anti-AIDS cocktail. The production of the first batch will begin next week. The expectation is to made the medicines avaiable to patients at the end of March. The production will be sufficient to meet all the national demand. This achievement has great importance to the sustainability of Aids universal treatment program.
Civil society groups had decisive influence on this process by using pre-grant opposition mechanism during INPI’s exam of the patent application filled by Gilead, the ancient suplier. As Estado de São Paulo newspaper remarks:
The Tenofovir has no patent. This condition, however, was only possible after process issued by Instituto de Tecnologia de Fármacos (Farmanguinhos) and Associação Brasileira Interdisciplinar de Aids (ABIA) presented to Instituto Nacional de Propriedade Industrial – INPI (Brazilian Patent Office) contesting the patent application made by the supplier (GILEAD). In 2008, Ministry of Health d Tenofovir as a medicine of public interest. After that, INPI prioritized the analysis of the process. Few months later, the application was denied.
Renata Reis, lawyer from ABIA was interviewed by Correio Braziliense newspaper:
The internal production of Tenofovir is supported by civil society entities. According to GTPI (Working Group on Intellectual Property) coordinator, Renata Reis, the treatment for Aids and hepatitis will become more practicable as long as national industry take on the fabrication of each one of the medicines. “The major cause is to maintain the program running in the best way, without abuses from pharmaceutical companies”, she says.