Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 11 July 1996
Organisers of the 11th International Conference on AIDS invited the European AIDS Treatment Group on stage to make an appeal directly through the conference's main plenary session.
"The European Commission has no sense of urgency with regards to getting new AIDS drugs to patients," said Raffi Babakhanian of the European AIDS Treatment Group.
He directly addressed Irish Health minister of state Brian O'Shea, whose country currently holds the rotating European Union presidency. O'Shea chairs the EU Council of Health Ministers.
"Mr O'Shea, I am asking you to pick up the phone and tell the Commission to get its act together," Babakhanian said. "Because killing time is killing people."
Babakhanian complained that AIDS drugs such as 3TC (Glaxo Wellcome's Epivir), Indinavir (Merck's Crixivan), saquinavir (Hoffman-LaRoche's Invirase) and ritonavir (Abbott Laboratories' Norvir) had all been approved by the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) in London, but that the Commission had not given final approval.
The drugs have been found to suppress the HIV virus when used in a combination therapy.
The EU has 90 days to act on EMEA recommendations.
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