SOUTH AFRICA: AIDS drug giant tackled over high prices

JOHANNESBURG, 24 Aug 2004 (PLUSNEWS) - The US-based NGO, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), has lodged a complaint with South Africa's Competition Tribunal against leading anti-AIDS drug producer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), saying Glaxo's high drug prices are preventing the treatment of more HIV-positive South Africans.

A local newspaper, Business Day, quoted AHF president Michael Weinstein as saying: "We have had to turn people away from our clinic because we simply don't have the funds to treat all the people who need treatment. If the price of GSK's AIDS drugs had been lower, we might have been able to save their lives."

AHF's complaint was originally filed with the Competition Commission, the investigative arm of the tribunal, early in 2003, shortly after the AIDS advocacy group, Treatment Action Campaign, accused Glaxo and German drug company Boehringer-Ingelheim of anticompetitive behaviour.

The commission has referred both cases to the tribunal and GSK has been given three weeks to respond to the complaint of overpricing.

[ENDS]