Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, is being accused of moral bankruptcy by pricing lifesaving drugs beyond the reach of millions of people in developing countries.
The charge comes from the United Kingdom based charity, Oxfam, which is campaigning to end the company's single pricing policy and is pressing for more flexible use of patent rules.
In a new report released simultaneously in eight countries, Oxfam has claimed that the company has aggressively enforced its patents in poor countries, driving up the cost of medicines, and, unlike some of its competitors, has not reduced the price of branded drugs.
David Earnshaw of Oxfam Brussels said: “The developing world accounts for only 5% of the pharmaceutical industry's income. Behaving responsibly in developing countries is not going to cost Pfizer a lot of money.”
The report maintained that despite owning three important drugs for infectious diseases—the antifungal fluconazole (Diflucan), the antiobiotic azithromycin (Zithromax), and the antiretroviral nelfinavir (Viracept)—Pfizer has shown little flexibility on pricing.
“Where it has patents, it appears to adopt a broadly uniform pricing strategy, and its policy is not to issue licences to generic manufacturers,” the report noted. Oxfam acknowledged that Pfizer, which sells seven of the world's top 30 drugs, operates several philanthropic initiatives, but it insists that these are an inadequate response to the health crisis facing poor countries.
Responding to the criticism, Pfizer insisted that medicine donation programmes had proved to be a durable and effective way to fight disease in the developing world, attracting countries, foundations, individuals, competitors, and academic alliances as partners.
It pointed specifically to its partnership with the South African government in the free provision of fluconazole to patients with AIDS; to its academic alliance for AIDS care and prevention; and to its trachoma abatement programme. It maintained that strong patent protection was essential to make drug discovery possible and profitable.
“Eliminate patent protection, and the incentive for original research is removed and every research based pharmaceutical company becomes a generic drug manufacturer, and the discovery of new medicines for Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, malaria, and heart disease slows to a trickle,” the company said.
Formula for Fairness: Patient Rights Before Patent Rights is at www.oxfam.org.uk/cutthecost/pfizer.pdf