Word: patent
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...many activists, the drug companies' gestures do not go far enough. Few African governments can afford brand-name AIDS drugs, even at bargain prices. And the industry's zealous defense of its patent rights has emboldened foes even more. Activists plan to turn up the heat this week in Pretoria, when South Africa's high court resumes hearings on a lawsuit filed by 39 pharmaceutical companies against a 1997 law that gives the Health Minister discretion to import cheap copies of patented drugs or authorize local labs to produce them without the consent of patent holders. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association...
...device - smaller than a cigarette pack - designed to produce this effect on demand. For those of my gender now sniveling, shriveling and about to book in for a sex change: wait! Let's read behind the headlines here. The lady didn't say, "You're going to have to patent a gadget to do that." No, she thought at once of her good old husband and maybe raising his game a little...
...Chose Him: You've probably never heard of Zackie Achmat. Not unless you're a South African AIDS patient demanding your government's help to stay alive, or a global pharmaceutical corporation looking to protect an AIDS-drug patent. But the campaign led by Achmat to secure treatment for South Africa's 4.7 million HIV patients this week scored an epic victory when 39 pharmaceutical companies withdrew a lawsuit to block South Africa from importing cheaper generic copies of patented AIDS drugs. For leading the campaign that shamed the corporations into backing down, raising new hope for millions of AIDS...
...Achmat and his colleagues had to fight on two fronts. Patent-protected prices put most Western AIDS-treatment drugs way beyond the means of South Africa's cash-strapped government, which was a primary reason for the government's reluctance to provide mass treatment. Unmoved by the pharmaceutical corporations' argument that protected patents were the crucial incentive for companies to invest in developing new treatments, the Treatment Action Group made common cause with AIDS activists in the industrialized countries on a two-pronged program - to press pharmaceutical corporations to slash their prices, and to press governments to allow developing countries...
...move followed efforts by the non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders, which urged Yale to relax its patent rights...