PHA-Exchange> ANNAN PRAISES PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES FOR EXTENDING HIV COMMITMENTS

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au>
From: UNNews at un.org

ANNAN PRAISES PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES FOR EXTENDING HIV COMMITMENTS
New York, Jul 24 2006  8:00PM
Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised some of the world’s leading 
pharmaceutical and diagnostic
companies for their commitments to expand access to HIV/AIDS treatment and 
prevention after meeting
with their top executives at United Nations Headquarters today.

“I am pleased that the companies I met with today pledged to continue their 
efforts, in line with
international commitments towards the goal of being as close as possible to 
universal access by
2010,” Mr. Annan said following the meeting with executives of nine 
companies and the heads of a
number of UN agencies, the first time manufacturers of generic drugs 
attended such a meeting.

Despite the significant advances in the five years since he first met with 
pharmaceutical company
executives, Mr. Annan said the AIDS epidemic is “still outpacing our efforts 
and we need to work
together in a broad partnership to step up the response.”

In that light, he said that the companies have committed individually to 
continue to review their
product offerings and the prices of their existing and new HIV medications 
and diagnostics,
especially for children, to make them more affordable, accessible and 
appropriate for use in low-
and middle-income countries.

They have also agreed to register their HIV medications and diagnostics as 
widely as possible,
increase investment in research, and give greater priority to the 
development of paediatric
formulations of HIV medications and specific diagnostic tools for children.

While affirming the importance of intellectual property rights, they said 
they would continue to
develop arrangements with third-party manufacturers for licences and 
technology transfers to make
HIV medications and diagnostics more affordable and accessible.

Mr. Annan <"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2147">said 
participants also agreed on the
role of the UN system in a number of areas, including work on the removal of 
import duties on HIV
medications and diagnostics, and the development of guidelines on diagnosis, 
treatment, product
quality and forecasting of needs

In addition, the World Health Organization 
(<"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/en/">WHO) and the UN
Children’s Fund (<"http://www.unicef.org/">UNICEF) committed themselves to 
step up efforts to expand
the pre-qualification programme of urgently needed medicines and 
diagnostics.

“These commitments are all of vital importance,” Mr. Annan said. “But given 
the scale of the
challenge, they are not sufficient in themselves,” he said in describing 
other efforts that will be
made by participants to identify further measures needed.

 From the UN system, the participants included: Kemal Dervis, Administrator 
of the UN
Development Programme (<"http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/">UNDP); Ann 
Veneman,
Executive Director of UNICEF; Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint UN 
Programme on
HIV/AIDS (<"http://www.unaids.org/en/">UNAIDS); and Anders Nordström, acting 
Director-General of WHO.

Participating pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies included Aspen 
Pharmacare,
Aurobindo Pharma, Becton Dickinson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, 
Hetero Drugs, Johnson &
Johnson, Merck & Company and Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited.