[Ip-health] Pharmalot on KEI FTC-Gilead complaint

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

http://pharmalot.com/2007/02/gilead_unfairly_controls_aids.php

Gilead Unfairly Controls AIDS Ingredients

That's the charge in a petition
<http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/ftcgilead12feb07.pdf>filed with the
US Federal Trade Commission by an advocacy group, Knowledge Ecology
International.

Supposedly, the drugmaker devised a complex scheme to use patents on a
government funded AIDS drug, which was invented at Emory University, to
cut-off low cost supplies of ingredients for two AIDS drugs. KEI charges
Gilead with "using licenses to patents on th AIDS drug emtricitabine in
45 countries to control the supply of the active pharmaceutical
ingredients to more than 100 other countries, and control the market for
a second AIDS drug, tenofovir, that is generally off-patent in
developing countries.

KEI includes a reader's guide from Brook Baker, a Northeastern
University law school prof: Gilead=92s licenses =93split and tie-up the
market for active pharmaceutical ingredients; Gilead seeks royalties on
approved sales even when patents are not in force, and finally, Gilead
is preventing additional sales in unapproved markets even where the two
drugs and their combinations aren't patented.=94

Why should anyone care? This is how KEI sees it: "This action imposes
higher costs for AIDS drugs in more than 150 developing country markets.
The US government is the largest purchaser of AIDS drugs in the
developing world, and is harmed by this anticompetitive practice.=94

In other words, the alleged scheme keeps prices artificially high, for
everyone. And if KEI is correct, Gilead is making hay since US taxpayers
funded the discovery of the drug in the first place. This will probably
take awhile to play out, but KEI, which is all over patent issues
involving drugmakers around the world, is raising some important questions.

--
Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney
judit.rius@keionline.org

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
www.cptech.org
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.: +1.202.332.2670, Ext 18  Fax: +1.202.332.2673