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Yale Pressed to Help Cut Drug Costs in Africa

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March 12, 2001, Section A, Page 3Buy Reprints
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Trying a new tack to drive down the price of AIDS medicines, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders has asked Yale University to permit South Africa to import a generic version of a drug on which Yale holds the patent.

The university, citing a patent contract with Bristol-Myers Squibb, has refused. But the Yale press office released a brief statement on Friday saying Yale had removed all barriers to Bristol-Myers in making the drug readily available in South Africa and hoped it would do so.

A group of Yale law students, distressed that their university looks complicit in keeping the drug out of reach of thousands of dying South Africans while getting $40 million a year in license fees, have been planning to pressure Yale.

A Bristol-Myers spokesman said the company was planning action because of the Yale protest, but declined to describe it.

The drug in question is d4T, an antiretroviral drug also known as stavudine or by the brand name Zerit. It was one of the first components of the triple-therapy AIDS cocktail that has done much toward bringing the disease largely under control in the United States.

Last year physicians at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Khayelitsha Township, outside Cape Town, began asking holders of patents on AIDS drugs to give South Africa the right to make them or to import generic versions.

The doctors say 50,000 township residents are H.I.V.-positive, and not one can afford antiretroviral therapy at prices that reflect those in the United States and Europe, $10,000 to $15,000 a year.

Cipla Ltd., an Indian company that makes generic drugs, has offered to sell the medical group a triple-therapy cocktail, including d4T, for $350 a year per patient. It is offering d4T itself at 5 cents a tablet, while Bristol-Myers charges $2.23. But Cipla's offer cannot be accepted legally in South Africa because the drug is under patent to Yale and Bristol-Myers.

Cipla, working with Doctors Without Borders, asked South Africa on Wednesday to give it the licenses on all antiretroviral drugs patented there by the multinationals on the ground that they are not selling them at affordable prices.

According to an article in The Yale Daily News, which broke the story, d4T was discovered by a pharmacology professor, William Prusoff, in the early 1990's and shortly afterward licensed to Bristol-Myers.

Last December, Doctors Without Borders wrote to the South African division of Bristol-Myers Squibb, asking for permission to import generic forms of two of the company's drugs, didanosine, known as ddI, and d4T.

The group was told that the company had not patented ddI in South Africa, and that Yale owned the patent on d4T and had licensed it to Bristol-Myers.

''It is the policy of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to rely upon its patents to protect its interests,'' concluded the letter, from I. J. Strachan, chief executive officer.

Toby Kasper, who runs the South African campaign of Doctors Without Borders for cheaper drugs, said the group concluded that it could probably import generic ddI without legal difficulties but should approach Yale about d4T.

Yale's response came on Feb. 28 from Jon Soderstrom, managing director of the Yale Office of Cooperative Research, which handles the licensing of inventions by Yale professors. ''Although Yale is indeed the patent holder,'' he wrote, ''Yale has granted an exclusive license to Bristol-Myers Squibb, under the terms of which only that entity may respond to a request.''

A group of interested Yale law students in contact with Doctors Without Borders have begun to put pressure on the university. Through their professors, they asked for a copy of Yale's contract with Bristol-Myers. Mr. Soderstrom declined to release it.

The students also complained that there are potential conflicts of interest between Yale and Bristol-Myers. The drug company donated $250,000 to Yale three years ago. And Mr. Soderstrom sits on the board of Achillion, a New Haven-based pharmaceutical company specializing in antiretrovirals, along with several former Bristol-Myers executives, said Amy Kapczynski, one of the law students.

Doctors Without Borders sent a letter on Friday suggesting that Yale was violating its own licensing agreement policy, which said it favors ''the benefit of society in general'' and sought agreements to ''carry out effective developing and marketing'' of licensed compounds.

Mr. Soderstrom declined to respond to two phone messages left at his office or to an e-mail message. But the statement from the Yale press office said Mr. Soderstrom was willing to meet with concerned students.

''Things are happening,'' said Robert F. Laverty, spokesman for Bristol-Myers. ''We're in active discussions with Yale to see that the patent doesn't prevent access by patients in South Africa at the lowest prices available.''

Professor Prussoff, d4T's inventor, is one of the world's giants of pharmacology; an earlier discovery in the 1950's led the first antiviral drug. He shares in Yale's Bristol-Myers royalties.

Semiretired at 80, he was in his office last week and said he ''would strongly support'' any student campaign to push down the price of his invention in poor countries.

''I'd certainly join the students in that,'' he said. ''I wish they would either supply the drug for free or allow India or Brazil to produce it cheaply for underdeveloped countries. But the problem is, the big drug houses are not altruistic organizations. Their only purpose is to make money.''

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 3 of the National edition with the headline: Yale Pressed to Help Cut Drug Costs in Africa. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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