South Africa takes on big pharma

At the end of the 1990s, tens of millions of people across Africa had been infected with HIV and in South Africa hundreds of thousands of people were dying from AIDS. People were demanding cheaper drugs, but the big pharmaceutical companies didn’t want to play ball. They took the South African to court over the right to import cheap drugs in a case which would last three years and which would pit the big pharmaceutical companies against Nelson Mandela and the rainbow nation. Bob Howard talks to Bada Pharasi, a former negotiator at South Africa’s department of health.

SANDTON, SOUTH AFRICA - JUNE 17: HIV/AIDS activists demonstrate in front of the American consulate on June 17, 2010. Credit: Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.