Bushmen Knowledge Plunderof Hoodia Gordonii
The Kung bushmen, who live around the Kalahari desert in South
Africa, have used the Hoodia cactus for thousands of years to
stave off hunger whilst on long hunting trips.
UK based company, Phytopharm, patented P57, the appetite suppressing
ingredient in Hoodia, claiming it as the next big slimming aid.
Phytopharm's share price rocketed as city traders expected rich
returns from a drug that would revolutionize the slimming market,
worth £6 billion. The company has since cashed in on the biopiracy
and sold the rights to license the drug for $21m to Pfizer, the
US pharma-ceutical giant. It will be ready in pill form within
three years.
Phytopharm's self-proclaimed Buddhist chief executive, Richard
Dixey, told the Financial Times, "we're doing what we can to pay
back, but it's a really fraught problem… especially as the people
who discovered the plant have disappeared".
The bushmen, who number 100,00 across South Africa, met with
their lawyers at their annual gathering in Cape Town to plan a
challenge against Phytopharm and Pfizer, demanding compensation.
Dixey replied that the South African Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) approached him with the deal and told
him the bushmen were extinct.
Dr Marthinus Horak, the man in charge of the CSIR project, claims
he always intended to tell the bushmen about the deal, once the
drug had been approved [and patented]. He said he didn't want
to raise expectations with promises that couldn't be met. Apparently,
CSIR is committed to sharing financial benefits through a variety
of benefit-sharing programs. The Hoodia drug may be South Africa's
first blockbuster drug where talk of `benefit-sharing' kept strictly
confidential by CSIR comes cheap.
The bushmen are expert botanists able to identify 300 different
types of plants with different properties. They naturally fear
more intellectual property plunders.
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