Drug Companies Sue S. African Government

A group of more than 40 drug companies is taking the South African government to court in a bid to stop the uncontrolled importation or manufacture of cut-price versions of patented AIDS drugs, officials said. The action, brought by the South African pharmaceutical manufacturers association on behalf of its members, will be heard in the Pretoria High Court on March 5, bringing to a head a three-year intellectual property dispute. London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s largest supplier of HIV/AIDS medicines, said the industry was committed to supplying inexpensive AIDS medicines to Africa but was alarmed by implications of a law passed by former President Nelson Mandela in 1997. “Clause 15c gives the health minister total power to dismiss patents without any process whatsoever. That is what the companies object to,” company spokesman Phil Thomson said. A South African Health Ministry official in Pretoria said the government would defend the action, seeing it as important to ensure the government has the right to obtain inexpensive drugs to fight the AIDS epidemic.