Of every $100
spent on medicines worldwide - 42 are in the USA, 25 in Europe, 11 in
Japan, 7.5 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 in China and South
East Asia, less than 2 in East Europe and India each, about 1 in Africa
and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) each.
Vaccines, contraceptives, and condoms are already subject to
cross-border differential pricing. Lately, drug companies, were forced
to introduce multi-tiered pricing following court decisions, or
agreements with the authorities. Brazilians and South Africans, for
instance, pay a fraction of the price paid in the West for their
anti-retroviral AIDS medication.
Even so, the price of a typical treatment is not affordable. Foreign
donors, private foundations - such as the Bill and Melissa Gates
Foundation - and international organizations had to step in to cover
the shortfall.
The experts acknowledged the risk that branded drugs sold cheaply in a
poor country might end up being smuggled into and consumed in a much
richer ones.
Less likely, industrialized countries may also impose price controls,
using poor country prices as benchmarks. Other participants, including
dominant NGO's, such as Oxfam and Medecins Sans Frontieres, rooted for
a reform of the TRIPS agreement - or the manufacturing of generic
alternatives to branded drugs.
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