United Press International - Saturday, 17 March 2001
Kurt Samson, UPI Medical Writer

Earlier this month Merck became the first manufacturer to announce that they would sell their anti-retroviral AIDS drugs in Africa at a discount, and Bristol-Myers Squibb announced on March 14 that they would drop the price of their HIV/AIDS drugs to just one dollar per day. BMS said that it would make the agents available for free in South Africa, where it and 38 other pharmaceutical companies have filed a lawsuit to block implementation of a law that would allow generic versions of patented U.S. AIDS drugs to be manufactured and imported to treat the epidemic.

The anti-retroviral drugs are used in the triple-therapy drug "cocktails" that have significantly cut AIDS-related deaths in the U.S. since their introduction in the mid-1990s.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company is participating in a public/private effort with United Nations organizations and four other pharmaceutical companies to explore ways to accelerate and improve HIV/AIDS-related care and treatment in developing countries.

GlaxoSmithKline, another member of the Accelerating Access Initiative -- a joint partnership between UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, United Nations Children's Fund, the U.N. Population Fund, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, F. Hoffmann La Roche and Merck -- says it has no plans to further reduce the price of its AIDS drugs in Africa and stands by its commitment to fight any effort to ease patent controls over its products in South Africa.

In May, the company made three of its HIV/AIDS medicines -- Retrovir, Epivir (3TC) and Combivir (Retrovir + Epivir) -- available to governments of developing countries at up to a 90 percent discount from U.S. prices, "a level in line with generic manufacturers," corporate spokeswoman Nancy Pekarek told United Press International.

"Late last month we extended the offer to non-governmental entities and employers with health clinics and hospitals," she said. "We are determined to play our part."

Jean-Pierre Garnier, Glaxo CEO, told shareholders last month that "faster progress is needed" to get inexpensive AIDS drugs to poorer countries, and announced that the company also would begin offering HIV drugs at the same discount to not-for-profit organizations and employers with health clinics.

"Some people might see patents as the obstacle to getting medicines to patients in poorer countries. Nothing could be further from the truth," he said. "Even in countries where low cost generics are available millions of people are dying every year because they cannot obtain low cost generic treatments for malaria, TB and other common diseases. We should also remember that 95 percent of the medicines on WHO's Essential Drugs List are not covered by patent protection anywhere in the world, let alone in developing countries, many of which have no effective intellectual property laws," he said.

A spokeswoman for Abbott Laboratories told United Press International that the company has "a whole lot of things in the works in that area," but details would not be available until next week. James Love, who specializes in drug patenting issues for the Consumer Project on Technology, an organization formed in 1995 by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, told UPI that despite their recent price cuts companies with HIV/AIDS drugs are "playing a game with smoke and mirrors" aimed more at protecting their patents than helping those with AIDS in developing countries.

"It's all about money and patents," he said. "These companies have been forced to react by the threat of generics drugs from India, Thailand, Korea and the Philippines. They have also realized that while South Africa represents only 1.3 percent of the global pharmaceutical market, there are millions of infected persons there. Even at the reduced prices they stand to make a lot of money."

Pharmaceutical companies has come under increasing pressure in recent weeks to reduce the price of AIDS drugs in developing countries from Doctors Without Frontiers, together with AIDS groups and college campus activists in the U.S.

A year's supply of the triple-therapy anti-AIDS drugs costs between $10,000 and $15,000 in the U.S., but generic versions are available for a fraction of that price, and Indian manufacturers have made a number of overtures to leaders in developing countries, seeking to sidestep international patent restrictions and allow the spin-off drugs to reach infected persons.
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