"High Price of Latest Drug for AIDS Patients Decried"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"High Price of Latest Drug for AIDS Patients Decried"

Washington Post (11/12/91), P. A1
Gladwell, Malcolm

Abstract: Many AIDS patients pay thousands of dollars to pro-long their lives with related treatments. AIDS patients spend $2,000 to $3,000 on treatments like AZT and DDI. To hinder any tuburculosis, an additional $3,000 must be spent on clarithromycin, and for pneumonia most AIDS patients are on sulfamethoxazole, which costs about $100 a year. These expenses are nothing compared to what it would cost to prevent blindness by using foscarnet--$20,000 annually. The Swedish company said that it is more than an adequate price because of the $100 million to bring the drug to market that would yeild no more than a few thousand customers. However, AIDS activists disagree stating that it will be highly lucrative for the pharmaceutical comapny. Researchers have discovered that the U.S. government does pay for a large part of foscarnet's development costs, and call the price irresponsible. Some pharmaceutical industry authorities are concerned that the high price of foscarnet would spur Congress to control drug prices.

911112
AD911998

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