Aids / South Korea : Roche pushes for more time, people living with HIV/aids die

Since yesterday - day of launch of the week of action against Roche [1]-, activists have already organized demonstrations front of the head offices of Roche in Seoul (picture).

After that, Roche sent us some false information — in an e-mail on the September 30th — trying then to discredit South Korean activist claims. On October 1st, Act Up-Paris approached Roche-France and Roche-Switzerland requiring some explanations and some concrete actions from the drug company.

The head of communication of Roche, in Basel, Mike Nelsen, called Act Up-Paris yesterday morning in order to organize a phone call during the day. Act Up-Paris has deplored the fact that Korean activists were not a part of the phone call. During another phone call, later, between a spokesperson of Act Up-Paris and Mike Nelsen, Roche took the commitment to contact as soon as possible Roche-Korea, in order to obtain some information and then ’to be able to reply to Korean activists’

But, today, Korean activists still do not have any news from Roche. Instead, the only answers are the silence and the contempt.

This morning (French time) and following the pressure of Act Up-Paris, Mike Nelsen replied that Roche will not have the capacity to respond to PLWH in South Korea before a few days.

The cynicism and the disregard of Roche do not have to be proved. Roche must find solutions to lowering the cost of Fuzeon and answer as soon as possible to the Korean activists.

We still demand :
– Roche must organize a meeting as soon as possible with the Korean activists
– Roche must cut its prices on HIV/aids drugs, including Fuzeon’s price, making them available in South Korea and in every other country where the medication is not available because of the high prices claimed by Roche.
– Korean government must issue compulsory license on Fuzeon to overcome the patent.