Basically, pharmaceutical companies prioritise profits over health. It's that simple. They don't allow developing countries the right to produce, export and import affordable copies of patented drugs (see the diagram below for an explanation of patents). This means that many people around the world die needlessly.

And we want you to do something about it.

Vital drugs will be priced out of reach of poor people. Fourteen million people die from treatable diseases every year. Many of these lives could be saved if cheap drugs were available. View all the 'rigged rules' animations >>

Oxfam campaigner Chris Rose posed as a businessman holding an oversized packet of profit pills, high above the heads of a group of poor people, London 13 November 2006.

The facts are shocking - 77 per cent of people in Africa still have no access to AIDS treatment and 30 per cent of the world’s population still do not have regular access to essential medicines.

It's five years since the World Trade Organisation signed an agreement (they called it the 'Doha Declaration') which promised to make life-saving medicines available and affordable for everybody. But the situation for people in poor countries is getting worse not better.

Pharmaceutical companies and rich country governments are now breaking the promises made in Doha - with devastating effects on millions of poor people.