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Pharmaceutical Companies

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NAU- Management Across Cultures
November 2010
There is a lot of discussion about pharmaceutical companies, intellectual property, and the global AIDS epidemic. Do pharmaceutical companies have a responsibility to distribute drugs for free or low cost in developing countries? Why is intellectual property such a big deal? What impact would South Africa’s decision to levy duties on drugs in the country have on the international distribution of drugs? Was the change that provided patent protection for pharmaceutical companies an appropriate change or a dangerous precedent? Was it necessary to relax intellectual property rules in order to ensure that adequate supplies of AIDs medications would be available for distribution in the …show more content…

Without the Intellectual Property Rights, developing countries doctors are telling patients about the cheapest method of burial, since most patients cannot even pay for the daily bed charge. The Intellectual Property Rights enables developing countries to import a generic drug if they can provide evidence of the public health concern, demonstrate the inability of the domestic pharmaceutical industry to produce the drug itself, and prove that it will only use the drug for public, non-commercial purposes. Developing countries are satisfied that the agreement does not limit them to emergency situations or designate only a short list of diseases for which generic drugs can be produced. Instead, it permits them to produce or import drugs to address the particular diseases that affect their countries. Nongovernmental Organizations are recommending the use of differential pricing, which would allow prices for drugs to be lower in developing countries, while higher prices are maintained in developed countries. If this is to work, then it is necessary to stop low priced drugs leaking back to developed countries. Developing countries should aim to facilitate in their legal systems the ability to import patented medicines if they can get them cheaper elsewhere in the world.

If South Africa decided to levy duties on drugs imported from Western nations it would cause a shortage on those drugs.

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