Clinton Foundation Lowers HIV Drug Prices

The William J. Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative has scored two deals that will help bring better and cheaper HIV and tuberculosis drugs to patients in developing countries. Mylan and its subsidiary Matrix have agreed to sell three second-line HIV pills—atazanavir, ritonavir, and a drug that combines tenofovir and lamivudine—for a total price of less than $475 per year. Furthermore, starting in 2010, Matrix will sell all three pills together in one box for $425 per year. Because coinfection with TB and HIV is on the rise, the foundation has also convinced Pfizer to sell rifabutin, a drug used to treat TB in HIV patients, for $90 for a six-month treatment course. The deal is the foundation’s first with a research-based drug company and its first related to TB.