Tamar Kahn, Science And Health Editor
2 August 2004
Cape Town — Independent pharmaceutical industry sources have spilled the beans on who has made it onto government's short list for the lucrative AIDS-drug tender, just days before the deadline for the firms to submit their quotes to government.
The long-awaited tender is widely regarded as one of the critical factors delaying government's provision of free AIDS drugs. The programme, announced last November as part of government's plan to tackle HIV and AIDS, is already markedly off target.
The AIDS Law Project says fewer than 10000 patients are receiving the life-saving antiretroviral medicines in state hospitals, a far cry from government's original goal of having 53000 on treatment by March.
The short-listed companies are Abbot, Aspen Pharmacare, Boëhringer Ingelheim, Bristol Meyers Squibb, CiplaMedpro, Enaleni, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Sharpe Dohme's South African subsidiary MSD, Pharma Marketing International and Thembalami, the joint venture between Adcock Ingram and Indian pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy.
Government has kept details of the short-listed companies secret until now.
The short-listed firms have until Friday to submit their quotes to government. The tender documents allocate 90 points to price, four points for empowerment credentials, four points to local manufacturing capacity, and two points for small business involvement, according to Stavros Nicolau, vice-chairman of the National Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.
Nicolau said that the three-year tender required companies to supply a volume of AIDS drugs enabling the treatment of about 102000 patients in year one, rising to about 180000 patients by year three.
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