Leaked PharmaGate emails Prove Big Pharma Involvement in Scandal
CAPE TOWN, 21st January: A leaked industry email published by Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) yesterday proves the direct involvement of multinational pharmaceutical companies and the Innovative Pharmaceuticals Association of South Africa (IPASA) in the PharmaGate scandal.
Despite attempting to distance themselves from the plot in public statements since the Mail & Guardian broke the story on Friday 17 January 2014, the leaked email illustrates that both IPASA and US-based industry body PhRMA (the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America) actively selected the "high calibre consultancy group" - PAE - to subvert the South African intellectual property law reform process and that IPASA's intellectual property committee was ready to proceed with the proposed plot with "urgency".
The leaked email in question was sent to IPASA members on January 10th by Michael Azrak, the Managing Director of Merck Southern and East Africa and Head of IPASA's Intellectual Property Committee. A copy of the e-mail can be found here.[1]
The email provides damning evidence that IPASA has been misleading the public on three key points since the story broke on Friday:
1. Firstly IPASA have claimed that they have "not engaged the consultancy PAE to lobby on intellectual property or any other matter in South Africa", rather PAE sent this proposal to IPASA speculatively. This is disingenuous and is contradicted in the leaked email that states: