View Session ( video ) ( transcript )

Facilitators:

• Giles Ji Ungpakorn, professor of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Speakers:

• Walden Bello, Ph.D., director, Focus on the Global South, United States
• Hank McKinnell, chief executive officer, Pfizer, United States
• Jonathan Berger, researcher, AIDS Law Project, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
• Harvey Bale, director general, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, Switzerland
• Elly Katabira, M.D., Makerere University, Uganda

Brian Brink, head of medical services at mining conglomerate AngloAmerican, and Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, chaired the session, in which participants presented their views on how intellectual property rights affect access to antiretroviral drugs. After being interrupted by protestors who chanted, "Break the patents, treat the people," Pfizer CEO Hank McKinnell said that intellectual property rights are an important incentive for pharmaceutical companies to research and develop new antiretroviral drugs that could benefit HIV-positive people in the future.  However, Walden Bello, director of Focus on the Global South, said that profits -- not human need -- determine the R&D of drug companies, and that most of the new drugs being developed by research-based organizations are only "minor variations" on existing drugs.

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