Aids activists ambush drugs boss

About 100 noisy Aids activists carrying mock corpses disrupted a speech by the head of Pfizer, accusing multi-national drug firms of denying lifesaving drugs to HIV sufferers by charging inflated prices.

The activists, carrying stuffed black plastic bags made to look like bodies, walked into a meeting room at the International Aids Conference in Bangkok minutes after Pfizer chief executive Hank McKinnell started speaking.

“Break the patents, treat the people,” they shouted.

McKinnell was giving a speech at a debate on intellectual property rights and anti-retroviral drugs. The activists, dumped the body bags on the stage, made a brief statement to the audience and left after 10 minutes.

Activists say drugs made by western companies are too expensive for people in the developed world to afford and that patents prevent poor countries from manufacturing copies.

Drug industry advocates say the high prices are to offset the billions of dollars that the companies spend on research.

McKinnell, resuming his speech after the disruption, said that without intellectual property rights, researchers would not have the incentive to develop HIV drugs.

“IP drives innovation,” McKinnell said. He said Pfizer invested £4bn (€6bn) a year in “the latest equipment and technology”.