Quinine cartel
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The quinine cartel was a cartel regarding price and territory of producers of quinine and quinidine. There were two separate cartels with different members each time.
From the first isolation of quinine as an API in the year 1792 until the year 1947[1] it remained the only effective medicine against Malaria until Chloroquine (a comparable but synthetic API) and other drugs in adequate amounts entered the pharma market. Triggers of the cartels were the long cycles of over 10 years from planting until harvest of a tree and very volatile prices at auctions at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.[2] Among other things, the main objective was to prevent unprofitable plantations of cinchona being replaced by other crops such as tea or coffee. In the long term, those land areas would no longer be available for cultivating cinchona bark if the demand for quinine would suddenly rise again.