Gilead Sciences is to offer its antiretroviral drug tenofovir (Viread) and its fixed dose combination Truvada (tenofovir and emtricitabine) to 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean at the same prices already available to sub-Saharan Africa, the company announced yesterday.
The drugs will be available at prices of US$29.75 per month (US$0.99 per day) and US$24.71 per month (US$0.82 per day), respectively.
The countries that will qualify for reduced prices are:
Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.
Further information is available at the Gilead Access website.
Gilead is also building a manufacturing plant in the Bahamas that will be capable of producing drugs for up to 500,000 patients a year.
The deal excludes larger South American countries such as Brazil, which this week asked Gilead Sciences to grant a voluntary license so that Brazilian companies can manufacture tenofovir at a lower price. Gilead has been given until April 4 to respond, after which the Brazilian government may use a compulsory license if it cannot quickly negotiate a voluntary licensing agreement. Two other companies, Abbott and Merck, have also been approached to grant voluntary licenses for lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra) and efavirenz (Stocrin) respectively. The Brazilian government says that the cost of the three drugs to the country has reached US$169 million a year.
A Brazilian health ministry official told Dow Jones Newswires that the total cost of anti-AIDS drugs is growing in an unbearable way, and that "to guarantee the sustainability of our (AIDS) programme, we need to produce these drugs ourselves".