Although there is an
"urgent
need to develop more powerful and more affordable" antiretroviral drugs
and "continue to work on a cure" for HIV/AIDS, many pharmaceutical
companies
are "leaving the field," Roger Bate, a
visiting
fellow at the American
Enterprise
Institute, writes in a Forbes
magazine opinion piece. The number of pharmaceutical companies
conducting
research into HIV/AIDS drugs dropped from 83 in 1997 to 60 in 2003, and
the number of products under development decreased from 128 to 83
during
the same period, according to Bate. However, "you can hardly blame the
drug companies for running" because HIV/AIDS drugs produce low profits
when compared with drugs for cancer, hypertension, heart disease and
erectile
dysfunction, Bate says, adding that "among people who have money and
insurance, millions more suffer from those
ailments
than
from AIDS." As advocates "push" for lower prices and
restricted
patents for antiretroviral drugs in order to increase access to
antiretroviral
drugs around the world, companies "can expect profits from HIV
medications
to fall even further," Bate says.
'Unconventional
Answer'
Bate proposes an "unconventional answer"
that combines
patent expansions with guaranteed markets in order to stimulate
research
into HIV/AIDS drugs. If a pharmaceutical company develops a new drug,
it
would voluntarily give up the patent in developing countries or even
worldwide,
Bate writes, adding that the U.S. government would then grant the
company
an extended patent on any of its drugs in the United States for a
certain
amount of time as "quid pro quo." Under the second option of
guaranteed
markets, the "significant sum" that the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief spends to distribute antiretrovirals
to developing nations would be paid only to companies that are
investing
a specific amount in HIV/AIDS research and drug development, Bate says.
This option might create an incentive for pharmaceutical companies to
develop
new drugs, Bate adds. Congress should pass legislation that requires
this
guaranteed market for at least 20 years, and the Bush administration
should
"pressure" other countries and the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to "follow suit," Bate
says. The discovery of new HIV/AIDS medications is "vital," as HIV is
"rapidly
developing resistance to existing drugs," Bate says, concluding that if
"researchers are to develop new drugs, it is essential that companies
be
able to utter 'profit' and 'AIDS' in the same sentence. If not, the
sentence
future AIDS patients will face is death" (Bate, Forbes,
10/18).
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