GSK to improve Aids drugs access with £60m spending
Move comes after pressure to get more medicines to the poor
July 15, 2009
By Reuters London
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) planned to invest up to £60 million (R805m) over 10 years to improve research, development and access to Aids drugs in Africa, the second-biggest drug maker said yesterday.
It has agreed to a new free voluntary licensing deal for Aids drug abacavir, or Ziagen, with generic drug maker Aspen Pharmacare, in which it has a 16 percent stake. Aspen will manufacture a cheaper generic version of the drug.
The latest steps, announced by GSK chief executive Andrew Witty, follow pressure from campaigners and some governments for drug companies to do more to get life-saving medicines to the poor, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
GSK took a lead in February by promising to place many of its patents on drugs for tropical diseases into a free "pool", but it stopped offering patents on medicines for HIV/Aids, which it does not consider to be a neglected disease.
"Up until now I've not really seen the articulation of how a patent pool in this particular area (HIV/Aids) would change things dramatically," Witty said. "The patent pool on neglected diseases was because there was really no research going on in that area."
So far GSK is the only big drug company to have committed to pool some of its drug patents, although it was joined last week by US biotech Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. GSK hopes others will follow suit.
Its new investments will see up to £50m channelled into a fund to support NGOs working with pregnant women to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
A further £10m in seed funding will go to support public-private partnership work in developing Aids medicines specifically for children.
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