At the end of the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa were still dying from HIV/AIDS because effective drug treatments were prohibitively expensive for a developing country. Under pressure from AIDS activists, the government of Nelson Mandela took the big international pharmaceutical companies to court over the right to import cheaper versions of AIDS drugs. Bob Howard talks to Bada Pharasi, a former negotiator at South Africa’s department of health.

PHOTO: HIV/AIDS activists demonstrate in front of an American consulate in South Africa in 2010. (Getty Images)