Brazil may ignore patents on AIDS drugs
Brazil has threatened to break as many as five patents of the 15 anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs that it uses to make the anti-AIDS cocktail.
The patents, according to a report on the Tralac site, belong to international pharmaceutical companies that have defended their prices in Brazil, claiming that they are among the lowest in the world. Roche, a Swiss healthcare company, has already lowered its price of ARVs by 73%, according to a spokesperson, while Merck, a US drug company, has been in talks with the Brazilian Government since 2003 over the possibility of the government manufacturing its drug. World Trade Organisation rules allow countries to issue a \'compulsory licence\' in terms of which a particular product can be produced and the patent broken if there is a national emergency. Full report on the Tralac site