The issue of public funding for healthcare has an increasingly strategic significance in the current stage of the Brazilian response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. ONPA/ABIA will
provide systematic studies on the challenges that exist in the technical, institutional and political fields.
In the area of pharmaceutical services, ONPA has undertaken an independent analysis and review of public policy focused on the country’s growth associated with strategic
investments and developments in the pharmaceutical industry.
ONPA will also enter into discussion on other topics, such as the debate on drug prices, threats to the sustainability of universal access to AIDS’ treatment and the negative impacts that negotiations for voluntary licenses with pharmaceutical companies can cause, such as limitations on releases of patents.
Today, ABIA’s work in this field is facilitated by the Working Group on Intellectual Property (GTPI). Since 2003, ABIA has coordinated with GTPI to integrate the Brazilian
Network for the Integration of Peoples (Rebrip), a collective of organizations and independent researchers who work for the expansion and maintenance of access to
medicines in Brazil and in the Global South and the rights of people living with HIV in Brazil. The group has been monitoring and seeking political attention for issues related
to the monopoly on the sale of essential HIV/AIDS drugs, which are protected by patent. GTPI/ABIA is the main group that works and coordinates systematically on this topic in
Brazil, focusing on collective action and resistance to granting needless pharmaceutical patents.
