JOHANNESBURG - Hoodia Gordonii Cactus
Southern Africa's indigenous San people signed a landmark
deal with a South African lab yesterday, securing financial rights
to a diet drug developed from a plant they have used for generations
to suppress hunger while on long desert treks. Under the deal,
the San people would receive 8 percent of payments the Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research receives while the drug, now
licensed for testing and eventual sale by the US pharmaceutical
giant Pfizer Inc., undergoes trials. Once the drug is commercially
available, the San would be paid 6 percent of all royalties awarded
to the South African lab, which holds the patent for the medication
derived from the San's traditional knowledge of the hoodia plant.
Roger Chennells, a lawyer representing the San, who number about
100,000 and live in the region of the Kalahari Desert of southwest
Africa, said yesterday's agreement marked a turning point for indigenous
people fighting to protect their role in the development of such
a potentially lucrative drug. The South African lab, partly
funded by the government, patented P57, the appetite suppressant
derived from the hoodia, without initially acknowledging the San.
Now the drug has the potential to be a blockbuster. The case
began after the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research patented
P57 and then licensed it to the small British pharmaceutical company
Phytopharm Plc.
Phytopharm then said the San clan that discovered
the hoodia had died out, and subleased the patent to Pfizer.
Eventually that San clan, which had been relocated by the apartheid
government but was alive, found out about the patent and embarked
on a legal battle that resulted in yesterday's agreement.
For as long as the San can remember, the bitter-tasting, green thorn-covered
hoodia plant has kept them from feeling hungry on long journeys
when they have little other food or water. Normally the patent
system protects individual achievements before they become public
knowledge. But indigenous people around the world, such as the San,
have begun to argue the system should protect the knowledge they
contribute to the public domain. The San are among the poorest
people in the region and the deal could bring in millions of dollars.
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