Tarun Gidwani, UK and India
Directed by Hanan Abdalla
Haemophilia is a rare and inherited bleeding disorder that prevents a person’s blood from clotting properly, and can result in long and potentially life-threatening spells of bleeding. There is no cure for haemophilia, but treatment exists to replace the missing blood clotting factors – administered through regular injections.
However, three quarters of the people who need haemophilia therapy have no or limited access to it, with people in low- and middle-income countries especially priced out. In some markets, the most effective hemophilia drugs cost more than £200,000 per patient annually.
Pharma companies say they need to charge extortionate prices for medicines to cover the cost of research and development (R&D) spending. But it has been repeatedly shown that the industry spends more money on sales and marketing costs, than it does on R&D. Pharma companies’ claims also ignore the gigantic public investments in drug development – which often mean the public pays twice for new drugs: first in the form of publicly subsidised research and second through high product prices.
Tarun Gidwani is a PhD researcher in philosophy, writer and activist.