"Market Principles" Will Help Africa Secure Quality, Timely Drugs

"Donating money to boost African access to essential drugs is a wonderful thing. But unless philanthropists insist on market principles in the continent's drug market, and until they apply necessary due diligence when cutting checks, their aid stands to be hijacked by governmental opportunism, incompetence and corruption," the American Enterprise Institute's Roger Bate writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that examines drug production and aid mismanagent in East Africa. "So far, donors have focused almost exclusively on lowering drug prices to improve access. They have subsidized drugs, demanded lower prices from innovator companies, and have weakened patent law to increase generic competition," Bate continues.

"Many are now pushing for African production of medicines, but the result so far has been higher costs and probably inferior drugs. In addition, donors are repeatedly awarding large contracts to cheap but erratic suppliers, costing lives." Bate cites an example in Kenya when an Indian pharmaceutical company did not deliver orders on time or in full, and the "U.S. had to provide emergency supplies of other approved antimalarial drugs at considerable cost." Bate asks, "And what is the Global Fund's role in all of this? The fund, like other donors, has a duty to ensure that the companies that win bids for its monies can actually deliver as promised" (9/28).

Back to other news for September 2009