NHI Act offers no answer to high medicines prices
The National Health Insurance Act does not deal with the systemic issues that cause high prices and inequity in medicine access, and government is not listening, argues Fatima Hassan.
Competition law has again worked to fight a bad drug patent, but we need other solutions
A Competition Commission probe recently resulted in a patent on an important tuberculosis medicine being dropped in South Africa. Twenty years ago, a similar Competition Commission case resulted in a settlement that helped drive down the prices of several antiretrovirals, thereby helping to set the stage for the country’s HIV treatment programme. Fatima Hassan and Leena Menghaney connect the dots between the two landmark cases and map out what has and has not changed over the last two decades.
In-depth: What two major bills might mean for health sector procurement in SA
Between South Africa’s Public Procurement Bill and the National Health Insurance Bill, health sector procurement in the country is set for a major shake-up – all as a landmark court decision recently reaffirmed the Constitutional imperative that public procurement must be conducted in a transparent way. Alicestine October takes a deep dive into the accelerating currents of procurement reform.
Analysis: Landmark SA court case takes on US maker of cystic fibrosis drugs
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a debilitating and often deadly disease. Until recently, the only treatments for its symptoms were difficult to administer and time-consuming. Life-changing new treatments that dramatically improve the prognosis for people with the disease have been developed, but they are expensive and Vertex, the US company making the drugs, has decided against registering the drugs in South Africa. Cheri Nel, a woman living with CF, is now taking Vertex on in a South African court. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the details.
