TAC NEWS SERVICE ---------------- 19 September 2002

* Statement by TAC on Excessive Pricing Complaint to Competition
Commission

* Questions and Answers about Complaint

(The complaint, its associated affidavits and this email will be
available on the TAC website, www.tac.org.za by 17:00 on Friday.)

WE WILL SAVE LIVES AND END DRUG COMPANY PROFITEERING TAC STATEMENT
ON EXCESSIVE PRICING COMPLAINT TO COMPETITION COMMISSION

The urgent need for medicines to save lives, families and the fabric
of our communities today impels a group of applicants (which includes
the Treatment Action Campaign, unions and doctors) to launch a
complaint with the Competition Commission in South Africa against
two major international drug companies, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and
Boehringer Ingelheim (BI).  The complaint charges these corporations
with excessive pricing in respect of several key drugs for the
treatment of AIDS. The drugs are: Retrovir (zidovudine or AZT), 3TC
(lamivudine), Combivir (AZT/lamivudine) and Viramune (nevirapine).

This is a novel step that engages South Africa's sophisticated
competition regulatory system in an effort to secure justice and
rationality in drug pricing in the AIDS epidemic. Tens of thousands
of people in our country are dying every year because of excessive
prices for these medicines and because of government's lack of
determined action to reduce the prices.

People living with HIV/AIDS, our doctors and nurses, the Treatment
Action Campaign (TAC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(Cosatu) and the Chemical Energy Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied
Workers Union (CEPPAWU) have decided to act jointly against continued,
unjust and insupportable drug company profiteering. South Africa
needs affordable medicines now.

According to the World Health Organisation, the most commonly
recommended triple drug therapy for HIV/AIDS is the combination of
Combivir (AZT/lamivudine) and Viramune (nevirapine). We are placing
the following powerful evidence before the Competition Commission:
a month's supply of this treatment regimen at retail prices costs
R1176.00 from Glaxo and Boehringer.  By contrasts, the best-priced
generic internationally cost R276.00 per month. The stark fact is
that for the cost of one treatment from the brand name companies
four people with AIDS can be treated on generics. We have additional
evidence of excessive pricing for individual drugs.

Excessive pricing or profiteering by GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer
Ingelheim is directly responsible for premature, predictable and
avoidable deaths of people living with HIV/AIDS, both children and
adults.

For nearly four years, TAC and our allies have campaigned globally
for drug companies to issue unconditional voluntary licences, against
a royalty payable to the corporations of 4-5%, to allow generic
competition and the lowest prices.  This is a rational, fair and
life-saving proposal.  The drug companies have ignored it. Now we
are asking the Competition Commission to investigate the complaint
and to refer it to the Competition Tribunal.

We seek the following relief: An order that GlaxoSmithKline and
Boehringer Ingelheim stop the excessive pricing practices; A
declaration that the excessive pricing conduct is a prohibited
practice for purposes of damages claims by all persons who can
establish that they have suffered loss or damage as a result of the
prohibitive practice concerned; and An administrative penalty against
the companies

We are taking this action to ensure that: The right to life is
placed before profiteering; People living with HIV/AIDS who work
can afford to buy medicines to save their lives; Children living
with HIV/AIDS will get access to antiretroviral medicines; Medical
schemes can afford to treat people living with HIV/AIDS without
going bankrupt; Employers can treat their workers on a sustainable
basis; and that Government shakes off the denialist paralysis and
develop a national treatment plan.

We call on all people in South Africa and across the world to support
this action taken by people living with HIV/AIDS, health care
professionals, TAC, Cosatu and Ceppawu.  We urge everyone to call
on all drug companies to immediately issue unconditional voluntary
licences for antiretroviral medicines to save the lives of millions
in our country and across the world.

HAZEL TAU - FIRST COMPLAINANT Hazel Tau, a woman living with HIV/AIDS
in Soweto and TAC member says: "Since April 2002, I have not been
so well. I have had an increasing number of opportunistic infections
including thrush and a lung infection, which was suspected to be
pneumonia. My CD4 has dropped to 168. I have also lost a lot of
weight.  I am aware that I need to go onto treatment now that my
CD4 has dropped below 200.  But I cannot afford to pay even R1000.00
a month for this. If the prices of ARVs were reduced to between
R400.00 to R500.00 a month I could afford treatment on my present
salary.  I am aware that I will have to sacrifice some things, but
I know that this treatment will help me and keep me healthy."

SINDISWA GODWANA - THIRD COMPLAINANT Sindiswa Godwana a 32 year old
mother of two children lives with HIV/AIDS. Sindiswa was lucky to
join a clinical trial in 2001.  However, the trial will only last
for three years. She says: "Because of the drugs that I am taking
I am now healthier than before. My CD4 count is now over 400 and
my viral load is now below 50. I am very happy that this has happened
because before I started taking the drugs I had vaginal thrush
twice. Since the trial, I have had no infections. I no longer feel
so tired and I am strong. I can work and help my family and help
other people living with HIV who come to the TAC offices for help.
When the trial ends next year my fear is that I will not get the
drugs anymore and that I will get infections again and my CD4 count
will be low again. I cannot afford to pay for these drugs and I do
not to want to get sick. I would like the pharmaceutical companies
to lower their prices so that people like me can buy these drugs
or get these drugs in clinics."

ZWELINZIMA VAVI  COSATU GENERAL-SECRETARY - NINTH COMPLAINANT "COSATU
is concerned about the high cost of drugs to treat AIDS relative
to the incomes of working people.  Almost 40% of all working people
earn under R1000 a month, while 25% earn between R1000 and R2500.
The majority of people with HIV in South Africa cannot afford the
treatment they need. In this context, the high cost of medical care
has imposed an unacceptable burden on our people.  According to
Statistics South Africa the costs of medical care have risen more
rapidly than the Consumer Price Index.  One reason for the rapid
increase in health costs has been the medical costs associated with
the HIV epidemic. Cosatu will campaign to save lives, reduce the
prices of ARVs and make all medicines affordable."

DR. STEVE ANDREWS - SEVENTH COMPLAINANT "It is morally debilitating
to see many of my patients suffer needlessly because they cannot
afford to pay for drugs that could save and enhance their lives at
the prices that are currently being charged.  As a doctor, I realise
that I cannot cure, but that I can care. With HIV/AIDS I have
witnessed breadwinners removed from their families, plunging people
further into poverty; I have witnessed families torn apart by this
epidemic. I have witnessed many children dying because they do not
have access to treatment, because their parents cannot afford to
pay for them at the current prices. I know that the tools to stop
or at least substantially reduce these eventualities are within my
grasp but that they are restrained by the financial and political
impediments imposed by the rich on the poor."

DR FRANCOIS VENTER EIGHT COMPLAINANT "As a medical