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By Doug Macron
NEW YORK, Mar 27 (Reuters Health) - Following the lead of other drug makers, Abbott Laboratories announced on Tuesday that it will offer its HIV antiretroviral drugs Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir) and Norvir (ritonavir) at below cost to all interested countries in Africa, where the AIDS epidemic is at its worst.
The Abbott Park, Illinois-based company said that it will also include its Determine HIV-1/2 rapid blood test in the offer.
"We're focusing on Africa specifically because it is an area that not only represents 10% of the world's population but about two thirds of all of the HIV infections worldwide," an Abbott spokeswoman told Reuters Health.
According to the company, the distribution of the drugs and the test will be handled by Axios International, a Uganda-based healthcare consultation firm.
The spokeswoman declined to comment on the exact price the products would be sold at under the arrangement, because it will vary depending on factors, including the cost of distribution, which varies from country to country. However, she said that the price would be comparable to the discounts that other companies are offering to developing nations.
To date, five other major pharmaceutical firms--Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck &Co. and Hoffman-La Roche--have begun cutting the prices on their AIDS drugs in Africa and other struggling nations. Excluding Boehringer Ingelheim, which offers its Viramune (nevirapine) at no cost, the companies generally sell their drugs under their humanitarian programs at a daily price of between $0.50 to $2 per drug per patient.
While the effort of pharmaceutical companies to provide their HIV products at significant discounts is welcomed by aid organizations such as UNAIDS and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), concerns persist that the products may still be unaffordable to those who need them most.
"In developing nations that might spend $10 a person annually on healthcare, which is very common, there may be no such thing as affordable drugs...so that really leads itself to undeveloped healthcare infrastructures really being at the center of...the issue," Abbott's spokeswoman said. It is for this reason, she added, that such a problem requires "a global response."
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