They are more typical.It would be unfair to suggest that people in Russia's ethnic republics are somehow incapable of democracy.Sabirjan BadrtinovNew YorkParallel linesSIR Professor Hugh Hansen's complaint ("A grey area", June 13th) that parallel importing "involves nothing more than free riding by people who create nothing" is surely groundless.
Manufacturers, especially those with prestige or luxury brands, hate parallel imports almost as much as counterfeits.The case before the European Court is typical.
However, the elation was short-lived: at the news conference following PhRMA's decision to withdraw its legal challenge, the South African minister of health announced that the drugs remained too expensive to parallel import or to manufacture locally.
In the late 1990s South Africa lobbied with Brazilian activists and members of civil society in the global north to successfully challenge large pharmaceutical companies' insistence that the country should not be allowed to parallel import generic medications.
In brief, the act contained provisions that would make it possible for the South African government to parallel import ARVs from abroad and to issue compulsory licenses to local pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic AIDS drugs at a fraction of what it would cost to purchase such drugs from their foreign patent holders.
But despite the opportunities, parallel importing accounts for less than 5percentt of European drug revenue, said Jeffrey Chaffkin, an analyst at PaineWebber, in a recent report.
'I don't believe that this or related measures such as parallel importing are the answer here,' Caborn wrote to Ben Jackson, director of London-based Action for Southern Africa (Actsa), last November.
The Western pharmaceutical industry opposes compulsory licensing, and another practice known as "parallel importing," which let a country's drug buyers seek the cheapest price anywhere in the world.
But once a company has sold a product, it should not be able to prevent its resale, provided that the product has not been tampered with.Manufacturers make much of the harm that parallel imports allegedly cause consumers.
Given Britain's high reputation as a drug regulator, following NICE's lead on Relenza and other medicines might prove politically expedient for countries such as France, according to Martyn Postle of Cambridge Pharma Consultancy.Drug companies have long complained that Europe's strict price controls and problems with parallel importing make it a less attractive place to do business than America.
