EU Backs Plan to Stop AIDS Drug Smuggling

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union states backed a new system on Monday to stop cut-price drugs for poor countries being smuggled back into Europe.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union states backed a new system on Monday to stop cut-price drugs for poor countries being smuggled back into Europe.Ministers approved the scheme, which will involve having discounted drugs for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria put on a special register to be held by the European Commission. The medicines will also have a special logo to identify them.”It is a small part of this wall we are building against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis,” European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy told a news conference.The drugs can be put on the register if they are sold at 75 percent below the average factory gate price or at the cost of production plus 15 percent.”Being on this list and bearing the logo will mean that imports of these products into the EU for free circulation, re-exportation, warehousing or trans-shipment will be prohibited,” the Commission said in a statement.It said re-importation into the EU will be prohibited from 76 countries, including less developed countries, low-income countries, and those where HIV/AIDS is particularly prevalent.Lamy had no clear figures for the amount of smuggling going on, but GlaxoSmithKline Plc and the Dutch government said in early October 2002 that AIDS drugs supplied to Africa at cut-rate prices had been illegally resold in Europe.The EU move is part of overall efforts to get medicines to poor states, many of which are being devastated by HIV/AIDS.But trade talks aimed at loosening intellectual property rules to allow developing countries to grant licenses for others to make cheap drugs for them have been stalled at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), mainly due to U.S. opposition.The Commission said it hoped other developed countries would follow its initiative on tiered pricing and said it would raise the issue at the Group of Eight meeting in Evian, France next week.It said more tiered pricing schemes could preclude the necessity for the granting of special production licenses, which would therefore get round the point of dispute at the WTO.(Source: Reuters Health, Tue May 27, 2003 04:29 PM ET)