AIDS Drug Makers Say Deaths Down
AP Online, Tuesday, November 24, 1998 at 16:45
By PHIL GALEWITZ
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - The pharmaceutical industry added five AIDS
drugs to its arsenal this year and has 113 more medicines in
development to treat the disease.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which
released the figures Tuesday, credit the 54 AIDS drugs now
available in the United States as the major cause for the decline
in the nation's AIDS death rate.
''We are trying to push the point that there is a lot of hope
for the future,'' said Dr. John Siegfried, the trade group's senior
medical officer.
AIDS patient advocates say they are grateful for the new drugs,
but also say the medications are too costly and have too many side
effects.
The five leading AIDS medications cost an average of $4,276 each
a year, according to the company's wholesale prices, which are
often 10 percent to 20 percent below retail levels.
Because most patients take multiple AIDS drugs, the federal
government has estimated patients' annual drug costs at about
$10,000. More than half the 240,000 people with AIDS in the United
States receive combination drug therapies.
Siegfried said drug companies must charge prices high enough to
recoup the millions of dollars in research and development costs.
''If you get a gusher you have to fund the drilling for the next
gusher,'' said Siegfried, who also works as a volunteer doctor at
an AIDS clinic in Washington, D.C.
That what Agouron Pharmaceutical Corp. had in mind last month
when it raised by 4 percent the price of its AIDS drug Viracept to
$5,913 a year. The La Jolla, Calif. based -company made $13.1
million profit from the drug on $466.50 million in sales for its
1998 fiscal year that ended in June.
A company spokeswoman said the price hike was needed to support
research into other AIDS treatments.
''It's discouraging to see drugs becoming more and more
expensive,'' said A. Cornelius Baker, executive director of the
National Association of People with AIDS. ''From a purely
money-making perspective it surely should be in any pharmaceutical
company's interest to produce a vaccine or drug for HIV that is
easy to take and readily accessible,'' Baker said.
Dupont Pharmaceuticals touted its pricing with its anti-HIV drug
Sustiva that won Food and Drugs Administration approval Sept. 18.
The once-a-day antiviral drug's wholesale cost is $3,942 a year.
The number of AIDS drugs in development slipped this year from
124 to 113, and new approved drugs fell from 8 to 5, changes
Friedman said did not signal a new trend. By comparison, the drug
industry has 316 cancer drugs in testing and 96 drugs for heart
disease/stroke drugs in development.
After much campaigning from the AIDS patient community, the drug
industry is developing drugs aimed at women and children. And it is
developing treatments aimed at restoring the immune system rather
than just trying to contain the virus.
Meanwhile, seven companies are currently testing HIV vaccines.
VaxGen of Brisbane Calif. is the only company in the final testing
phase.
Glaxo Wellcome, which has seven approved AIDS drugs, more than
any other pharmaceutical maker, is awaiting federal FDA decisions
on two more drugs, Agenerase and Ziagen. |
