Skip to main content

How pharmaceutical companies blocked cheap generic medicines in South Africa – and why that’s set to change

| Research tools

Health minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has stated that proposed changes to the Intellectual Property Policy will do away with prolonged patents and open up the pharmaceuticals sector for more affordable generics to be manufactured.

Speaking at a media event on Thursday (31 May), Motsoaledi said that the proposed changes to the policy will do away with companies that use loopholes to extend patents on drugs by decades.

According to the current Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), signed in 1995, pharmaceutical companies were given room to register patents on drugs they researched and manufactured for a 20-year period. Thereafter, the research is meant to be made public for other companies to use.

However, the flexibilities that were agreed upon left room for abuse, as companies would partially modify their drug and register them as a new patent, explained Motsoaledi.

“Now the problem is that at the expiry of the 20 years, instead of generics flowing and drugs getting cheaper, the companies do what is called ‘evergreening’, which means you take the drug, change one molecule and apply for a patent as a new drug and you are given another 20 years,” he said.

Effectively this meant that the ’20 year period’ never came to and end and continued forever. However this new policy is set to change this practice, Motsoaledi said.

“This policy brings that to an end because through substantive examinations, we will be able to tell a company that there is not substantive change on the drug – it is still the same drug that has been there for 20 years,” he said.




Pin It

Related Articles

By: Staff Reporter - IOL Cash is king, credit is hard to come by and side hustles often bring in more than 9-to-5 jobs. That’s life for many young South Africans. But Gen Zs are not sitting back waiting for a break. They’re making a plan and figuri…
By 2030, Gen Z will be the biggest-spending generation in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, and already, South Africa's youngest consumers are changing the way the country pays.
Checkers has taken the lead in South Africa’s fast-growing on-demand grocery delivery market, outpacing rival Pick n Pay’s asap! service.
By: Trade Intelligence New data from Trade Intelligence reveals key shifts in South Africa’s FMCG retail landscape, with Discounter and E-commerce formats outperforming other channels in 2024.
By: Siphelele Dludla – IOL Business South African small businesses are continuing to display resilience, demonstrating remarkable resilience and optimism for the future in the face of political and economic uncertainty.