Nationalizing Efavirenz: Compulsory License, Collective Invention, and Neo-developmentalism in Brazil (2001–2012)

This article examines the legal, technological, and industrial trajectory of an antiretroviral drug, Efavirenz, distributed freely 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 and Company, Inc., to exploit the molecule in Brazil, and authorized the production of a generic version by local laboratories. This compulsory license by the Brazilian government also intended to perpetuate the policy of universal access to treatment, with the objective of combating the AIDS epidemic and boosting the country's pharmaceutical industry. The nationalization of Efavirenz has allowed for experimental collective production in the form of an industrial consortium, and launched a policy of partnerships between public and private pharmaceutical laboratories.