Nationalizing efavirenz : compulsory licence, collective invention and neo--developmentalism in Brazil

International audienceThis chapter examines the legal, technological and industrial trajectory of an antiretroviral drug, efavirenz, which has been distributed free of charge to HIV/Aids patients by the Brazilian Ministry of Health since the early 2000s. In May 2007 a presidential decree suspended the exclusive rights of the patent owner, Merck, to the exploitation of the molecule in Brazil, and authorized the production of a generic version by local laboratories. This compulsory license by the Brazilian state is also intended to perpetuate the policy of universal access to treatment, with a view to combatting the Aids epidemic and boosting the country’s pharmaceutical industry. Nationalization of efavirenz has given rise to experimentation with collective production in the form of an industrial consortium and inaugurated a policy of partnerships between public and private pharmaceutical laboratories