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PRETORIA, South Africa — Pharmaceutical firms suing the South African government say officials have rejected or ignored their offers to provide cheap or free AIDS drugs, countering the country’s claims that it needs to import cheaper generic alternatives because it cannot afford the patented drugs. 

“To the extent that prices of medicines do enter considerations, it is clear they cannot play a significant role because the government declines to use these products, even where they are offered for free,” the Sunday Independent newspaper quoted Mirryena Deeb, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, as saying in an affidavit filed in the Pretoria High Court Friday. 

About three dozen drug companies, including some of the world’s biggest, have asked the court to overturn a law that would allow the government to import cheap generic medications in an emergency. 

The case is seen as a watershed in efforts to get AIDS medicines, known as anti-retroviral drugs, to poor countries.  

Hearing is to resume April 18, and a judgment may not come for months. The losing side can appeal. 

The drug companies have argued that the Medicines Control Act – signed into law in 1997 but never put into force because of the court challenge – undermines their patents, gives the health minister unfettered power to control the import and pricing structure of medicines and is unconstitutional. 

South Africa has the world’s largest population of people with HIV and AIDS. An estimated 4.7 million people, or 11 percent of the population, are infected, and few can afford treatment, which costs between $10,000 to $15,000 in Western countries. 

Anti-retroviral drugs were not available in the public health system because the government had tried to manage the HIV/AIDS epidemic without them, said the manufacturers association, which represents the drug companies. 

Deeb said an offer made last May by Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche of Switzerland, Bristol-Myers Squibb of New York, Merck and Co. of New Jersey and Britain’s Glaxo Wellcome to work with governments and cut drug prices in developing countries had never been taken up. 

“The South African government has not yet even initiated discussions ... to procure the medicines in question at the very substantial savings that the offers entail,” she said. 

In February, South Africa’s Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang accused the companies of not disclosing the prices they would charge. 

Ayanda Ntsaluba, the director-general of the Health Department, had acknowledged an offer from Boehringer Ingelheim to supply its anti-retroviral drug Viramune free for five years, the Independent said.  

The drug, which contains nevirapine, a chemical that can prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, has yet to be registered by the Medical Control Council. 

Bristol-Meyers Squibb had also offered a combination of its drugs Videx and Zerit at the discounted price of $1 a day, but the Health Department had not responded, the paper said. 

THE CASE 

The case is seen as a  

watershed in efforts to get AIDS medicines, known as anti-retroviral drugs, to poor countries. Hearing is to resume April 18, and a  

judgment may not come for months. The losing side can appeal.