Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - December 15, 2003
The investment committee of the California Public Employees Retirement System voted 6-5 not to send the letter, which also would have asked the drug maker to meet with the pension fund to discuss a ruling by the South Africa Competition Commission regarding GlaxoSmithKline's pricing of anti-AIDS drugs.
The vote followed testimony by attorneys representing the drug maker, AIDS activists, and Calpers investment managers, who sounded exasperated after being caught in the middle of the long-running dispute between activists and the drug maker over pricing and licensing of drugs to combat AIDS in developing nations.
"Clearly, Calpers wishes to move on," said Tom Myers, general counsel for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "If circumstances change, we'll certainly be back."
On Dec. 9, a Calpers spokesman said the pension fund would send the letter requesting the report. The letter would have marked the second one this year that Calpers has sent to the drug maker at the urging of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The advocacy group wants Calpers to press the company on its AIDS drugs pricing policies in developing countries.
However, the next day, in an out-of-court settlement with AIDS activists, the British drug maker and Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim said they would grant more licenses to generic firms to product and import antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.
The decision moved South Africa a step closer to bringing the desperately needed AIDS drugs to millions of its poor. South Africa has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country -- an estimated 5.3 million, or 13 percent of the world's HIV-infected population.
Despite steep price cuts in recent years, modern therapy to fight the HIV virus that causes AIDS remains out of reach for the vast majority of Africans
(Reporting by Jim Christie in Sacramento)
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