Bill Clinton announces AIDS drug deals
NEW YORK - Former President Bill Clinton announced agreements with drug companies Tuesday to lower the price of so-called “second-line”
AIDS drugs for people in the developing world and to make a once-a-day AIDS pill available for less than $1 a day.
The anti-retroviral drugs are needed by patients who develop resistance to first-line treatment and currently cost 10 times as much as first-line therapy, Clinton said. Nearly half a million patients will require these drugs by 2010.
Clinton’s foundation negotiated agreements with generic drug makers Cipla Ltd. and Matrix Laboratories Ltd. that he said would mean an average savings of 25 percent in low-income countries and 50 percent in middle-income countries. He said the companies collaborated with the foundation to lower production costs, in part by securing lower prices for raw materials.
The reduced-price, once-daily pill combines the drugs tenofovir, lamivudine and efavirenz.
Clinton said the new price of $339 per patient per year would be 45 percent lower than the current rate available to low-income countries and 67 percent less than the price available to many middle-income countries
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Source: news.yahoo.com
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