Glaxo Will Cut AIDS Drug Prices For Poor Nations

GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest maker of AIDS drugs, says it is further cutting, by about 30%, the not-for-profit prices it charges for some of these medicines in the world's poorest countries.

The British pharmaceutical company also says it is adding two more life-extending antiretroviral drugs to its preferential pricing program and has signed an eighth voluntary license agreement, which will allow South Africa's Sonke Pharmaceuticals to make generic versions of zidovudine (AZT) and lamivudine.

The new price reductions, which take effect on July 1, will lower the cost of a 60-tablet package of Trizivir in poor countries by 31% to $70.00 and of a 60-tablet package of Ziagen by 28% to $52.29. Ziagen is currently recommended by the World Health Organization as a second-line treatment option, and Trizivir is a triple fixed-dose combination particularly useful in patients co-infected by HIV and tuberculosis.

In addition, GSK says the antiretrovirals Kivexa and Telzir will be added to its not-for-profit program, pending their approval in countries in the developing world. Kivexa is a fixed-dose combination of lamivudine and abacavir, and Telzir is a protease inhibitor.

Drug companies have been severely criticized for the high prices of AIDS drugs in poor countries, where life-saving treatments are unaffordable for most people affected by the disease. Responding to mounting public pressure and United Nations diplomacy, GSK and other AIDS-drug manufacturers have announced a series of price cuts in recent years.

GSK says the latest reductions are made possible by improvements in the manufacturing process and economies of scale. The company had previously said it would reduce prices once sales volume improved, something that is now occurring as shipments of AIDS medicines to Africa increase.

"The HIV-AIDS pandemic presents a unique challenge to the global community," GSK CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier says. "The actions we are announcing demonstrate GSK's commitment to the global response through preferential pricing, partnerships, community investment, and research and development of new medicines and vaccines to fight disease."

GSK's not-for-profit prices are available to those in the UN's list of least developed countries and to all of sub-Saharan Africa???a total of 64 nations.

The newest round of price reductions was announced as the UN issued a report saying there are still severe gaps in AIDS prevention and treatment, 25 years after the disease was first identified by the Centers for Disease Control.

About 1.3 million people in the developing world are now on antiretroviral medicines, which saved some 300,000 lives last year alone, according to UNAIDS, the UN agency that coordinates the global campaign against the disease. Nevertheless, the report says, about 4.1 million people were newly infected with HIV and 2.8 million died from AIDS in 2005.