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Article

9 Aug 2007

Author:
Amir Attaran, Professor, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa

AIDS drugs fiasco a tale of red tape [Canada]

As a professor of public health and law, I want to comment on Apotex's plan to sell its three-in-one AIDS medicine to Rwanda. Canada is not the best country to meet Rwanda's medicine needs, and if Apotex made the sale, it would be to Rwanda's profound detriment…According to Médecins Sans Frontières, the same combination of AIDS medicines that Apotex proposes to sell Rwanda is already being sold by Ranbaxy of India at about 14 cents a pill…In contrast, Apotex's president, Jack Kay, testified…that he would sell this medicine "at our cost, which is 39 cents" a pill. So Apotex's product is nearly three times as expensive – not surprising, since obviously the costs of manufacturing in Canada are higher than in India…