NEW DELHI: Pharmaceutical industry ’s machinations to interfere in a country’s policymaking to protect their interests have been exposed yet again, this time in South Africa.

The leaked plans of a public relations firm hired by the American and South African pharmaceutical multinational companies revealed how pharma planned to launch a campaign to discredit and subvert the proposed reform of South Africa’s patent laws.

The leaked nine-page document of the PR firm, Public Affairs Engagement, titled, Campaign to Prevent Damage to Innovation from the Proposed Draft National IP Policy in South Africa, was prepared for Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Innovative Pharmaceuticals Association of South Africa (IPASA). It expressed the fear that if the reforms were adopted, South Africa would become less friendly to so-called “innovator companies” and that this “may also provide the model for other developing nations, inside and outside Africa, including such important aspiring economies such as India and Brazil."

It went on to say that South Africa was ground zero for the debate on strong intellectual property (IP) law and that “if the battle is lost here the effects will resonate”. It recommended that the most effective focus of the campaign against the reforms in IP law ought to be on how important strong IP laws were to the country’s economy as investments would stop without strong IP and new treatments would not be available to patients. It also stated how it had to be projected that patent protections were not the reason for poor healthcare in the country, but substandard public health policy, and inadequate delivery system and poverty.

It clearly stated that the “immediate mission” was “to delay the finalization of the IP policy by the cabinet” and its further passage through parliament till after the elections as “delay would provide time to develop a third stage of the campaign” to develop a strong IP policy.

The document elaborates a strategy which would include mobilizing voices “inside and outside South Africa to send the message that the proposed IP reforms would threaten continued investment and thus economic and social wellbeing”. “The mobilization will occur through an energetic campaign which will feel like a political campaign”, it adds. And the campaign message would be that South Africa ought not to rush into IP reforms as that could damage its interests and give advantage to its competitors like Nigeria and hence it ought to slow down and devise a better policy.

The pharma industry’s got nervous when the department of trade and industry published a draft framework for a new policy on intellectual property (IP), including patents over life-saving drugs in September last year. The reforms included many of the flexibilities that the WTO allows its members including provisions for compulsory licensing, a license which allows a company to produce a patented products by paying royalty to the patent-owning company, even if the owner company has not given permission to allow such copying of its patented product. Such flexibilities had earlier been missing in the South African patent law. Pharma feared that the proposed new IP policy could become law before South African election expected to be held in April-July 2014.

The document concluded by stating that it had to be communicated that the world cared that South Africa was going to take a wrong turn with its IP policy, and on a slightly more menacing note added that by cared “we mean both expresses compassionate concern and will take action by reducing investment”. It stated further that if the IP draft approach prevailed in South Africa, other developing countries could be expected to follow which is why the contest in South Africa “was so critical” and why a robust campaign was absolutely necessary.