E-drug: Economics of antiretroviral manufacturing (cont'd)
---------------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
Chris Green lamented the lack of response to his request for information on
the costs of manufacturing anti retroviral drugs. I am afraid I don't have
this information but I have just been reading a paper published by WHO's
Drug Action Programme entitled
"International strategies for tropical disease treatments -
experiences
with praziquantal" edited by Michael Reich (WHO/DAP CTD/98.5)
This report looks in considerable detail at the factors which have
influenced access to praziquantal over the last twenty years. It includes
papers on the production costs and pricing strategies of major producers.
The detailed information in the report concerns praziquantal only, but the
discussion reaches much further, and illustrates more general problems in
regard to policies to make new drugs accessible to people in developing
countries. Much of the discussion in the paper is very relevant to the
debate about access to antiretrovirals and I recommend it to anyone
interested in this area.
Catherine Hodgkin
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: chodgkin@xs4all.nl
--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.