Five years may be a short time in the development cycle for a new medicine, but it has been an extremely busy period for the pharmaceutical sector in intensifying the distribution of its existing Aids drugs around the world. Since 2001, when leading international drug companies settled on the steps of the court just ahead of high-profile litigation with the South African government over patent rights, the mood has changed sharply in favour of tightened co-operation.

Already the previous year, the leading companies – Abbott, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Merck – had established the Accelerating Access Initiative with relevant United Nations agencies.