
Four decades of HIV/Aids
The History Hour
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South African Aids - The Big Pharma Companies Don't Want to Play Ball
People across south africa were demanding cheaper drugs, but the big pharmaceutical companies didn't want to play ball. Most new drugs are manufactured under patent and can only be produced with the approval of the companies which develop them. The bulk of the drugs were brought into the country at very high prices. There was one solution for lowering the cost of branded drugs, that was to try something called parallel importation,. This meant saucing the same drug at a cheaper price from another country.
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