Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - June 6, 2001
Pfizer developed the Diflucan Partnership in cooperation with the U.N. and the World Health Organization and said it would support the initiative for as long as needed. The agreement expands Pfizer's existing South African Diflucan Partnership Program, a collaboration reached in December between the company and the South African Ministry of Health. Under that initiative, Pfizer agreed to donate $50 million of Diflucan for AIDS treatment in the South African region. Diflucan began reaching patients earlier this spring through the South African partnership. To date, 185 institutions in South Africa have begun to distribute medicine through the program, Pfizer said. Discussions about expanded partnership programs have begun with Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Swaziland, the company added.
While Diflucan isn't a treatment for HIV/AIDS, Pfizer said it has proven highly effective in treating two opportunistic infections, cryptococcal meningitis, a life-threatening brain infection, and esophageal candidiasis, a fungal infection of the esophagus. These infections afflict large numbers of people with AIDS. Pfizer joined a number of drug manufacturers such as Merck & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Abbott Laboratories, which are offering AIDS drugs free or below cost.
In March, Merck said it would sell two of its AIDS drugs at cost, or at about 40% to 55% less than the discounted price it offered last year, in Africa. A week later, Bristol-Myers said it would offer to sell its two HIV medicines to poor nations in Africa at just below the drugs' cost. Bristol-Myers' announcement marked the first time any drug maker had made such a proposal.
Later that same month, Abbott Laboratories said it was planning to sell its two AIDS drugs and its HIV diagnostic test at "no profit" in sub-Saharan Africa. Under international pressure from AIDS activists, pharmaceutical makers in April agreed to drop a lawsuit against South Africa that challenged a law making it easier for South Africa to import or make less-expensive generic versions of the industry's brand-name medicines, including drugs to treat AIDS.
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