In 2004, at the midpoint of New Labour's time in office, the global AIDS epidemic was at its height. UNAIDS, the United Nations body tasked with addressing the crisis, estimated at the time that since the early 1980s the disease had claimed the lives of some 20 million people, with between 34.6 and 42.3 million people worldwide living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. As it remains today, sub-Saharan Africa was the worst affected region, with many of its countries decimated by a disease responsible for the deaths of more people than any other illness. As infection rates and mortality rates peaked, the New Labour government set about tackling this crisis. Sandwiched in between its efforts to raise finance for development through increased debt relief and overseas aid, government ministers – again led by Gordon Brown – unveiled a strategy to increase the availability of the antiretroviral drugs with a specific focus upon developing countries. While these medicines would not cure those living with the disease, improving their accessibility would help promote greater adherence to appropriate treatment regimes and prolong the lives of those living with HIV.

Again, to its credit, New Labour took the initiative, and as this chapter will show, set about addressing the shortfall of both the amount of and access to antiretroviral drugs in some of the poorest parts of the world. Central to this commitment was again Gordon Brown. In both his role as Chancellor and then prime minister, Brown was ever-present, co-ordinating New Labour's response and bringing to bear his moral call to arms against this deadly global disease through a high-level partnership with Britain's powerful pharmaceutical industry. On the face of it, this appeared to be a sound enough strategy: several of the world's biggest and wealthiest drug companies, many of which were based in Britain, redoubling their efforts to address this global catastrophe. Yet it was a partnership that often appeared contradictory and riven with tensions. This conflict Brown himself appeared to embody.