Patents, Innovation and Public Health: Brazilian Public-Sector Laboratories' Experience in Copying AIDS Drugs

International audienceThe Brazilian experience in producing HIV/AIDS drugs is based on the lawful copying of medicines patented abroad, on a health policy of universal access to antiretrovirals (ARV), and on technological learning, especially in public-sector laboratories through reverse engineering. The information contained in patents has proved to be incomplete and the chemical standards of these molecules are not available in the pharmacopoeias. Chemists at the Rio health ministry’s laboratory have had to partially rediscover the qualitative and quan- titative composition of these drugs. They have thus acquired knowledge on the synthesis processes of the active principles of drugs, which they are now able to transfer to pharmaceutical companies. Apart from copying existing drugs, the laboratory also develops research both in-house and in partnership with universities, to create new molecules. The learning process initiated through copying is thus combined with a research policy