ABSTRACT
IN MARCH 2012, Brazilian judge Daniela Pereira Madeira ruled in favor of the Brazilian pharmaceutical company Cristália and annulled the patent held by Abbott Laboratories for Kaletra, a drug for treating AIDS/HIV. Cristália plans to begin producing a generic version of Kaletra. Th e decision was the latest (and probably not the last) in a legal battle that began in July 2005, one week aft er Brazil’s health minister, José Saraiva Felipe, assumed his new job. Felipe found himself attempting to renegotiate access to Kaletra and other drugs that are made freely available by the Brazilian government to all who need it. Th e number of Brazilians taking the drug was expected to increase from 23,400 to 60,000. Felipe needed to strike a deal. Kaletra alone was absorbing a third of the health ministry’s budget for antiviral medicines.
