# \[e-drug\] Resistant malaria drug costs to be cut **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [June 2, 2001, 4:47pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-resistant-malaria-drug-costs-to-be-cut/11482 "2001-06-02T16:47:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![e-drug2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8dc957/32.png) [@e-drug2](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/e-drug2)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2001, 4:47pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-resistant-malaria-drug-costs-to-be-cut/11482/1 "2001-06-02T16:47:28Z")
E-DRUG: Resistant malaria drug costs to be cut ---------------------------------------------- [2 messages in one. Crossposted from AFRO-NETS. Co-arthemeter has recently been introduced in South Africa as 1st line treatment for malaria, in areas where chloroquine and SP have become resistant. Novartis charged USD 3.60 per adult treatment; maybe this agreement means the price can go even down further? As Mrs Brundtland says, a malaria treatment at USD 2.40 is still quite expensive compared to the cents we paid for chloroquine and Sulfadoxine/Pyrimethamine! Any E-drugger knows another country where co-artemeter has been introduced? NN] By Alexander G. Higgins, Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) - The World Health Organization praised an agreement by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG to slash the price of its new- est anti-malaria drug for parts of Africa. The deal, signed Wednes- day, could help reverse a trend in which "the number of children dy- ing of malaria in Africa has been increasing in recent years," said WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland. "This is really a good deal for global health," she said. WHO estimates that malaria, spread by the Anopheles mosquito, infects more than 300 million people a year and kills 1 million of them annually. Most who die are African children under the age of 5. Part of the problem is the malaria parasite is increasingly resistant to the standard treatment, chloroquine, which once was highly effec- tive, Brundtland said. Novartis Chief Executive Daniel Vasella said the company had developed the new medicine, called Coartem, with an eye toward providing it at cost to WHO. The price - about 10 US cents a tablet, or US$ 2.40 per full adult treatment - brings the company no profit, but covers its costs, he said. Coartem costs up to US$ 40 per course of treatment in the West, where it is sold under the name Riamet to people travelling to malaria-infested areas, Vasella said. Novartis developed Coartem with the Institute for Microbiology and Epidemiology in Beijing by combining a traditional Chinese plant- based remedy with a synthetic substance (20mg Artemether and 120mg Lumefantrine). The result is the fastest-acting anti-malaria medi- cine, with a cure rate over 95 percent. It kills parasites in 48 hours. So far, no development of resistance has been detected, Vasella said. Brundtland conceded that the low price was still too expensive for some countries but said the drug could be used where it is most needed to fight drug-resistant cases. The program would focus on East and Central Africa, where the need is greatest, she said. The agree- ment comes as other pharmaceutical companies have moved to cut their prices of AIDS drugs in recent months because of pressure to make the drugs available to poor countries. Novartis doesn't produce AIDS medicines. "Malaria is a bigger killer of young children in Africa than HIV/AIDS," said David Alnwick, head of WHO's anti-malaria cam- paign. -- Send mail for the `AFRO-NETS' conference to `\'. -------------------------------------- Novartis to slash price of malaria drug for poor Business Report, 4 May 2001 Novartis AG said last Thursday it was ready to supply a promising anti-malaria medicine "at cost" to Africa in the latest move by the drug industry to improve access to life-saving treatments. The international pharmaceutical industry is under mounting pressure to cut the cost of drugs against life-threatening diseases in poor countries. Several companies have slashed the price of AIDS treatments in Africa in recent months, but the industry was widely attacked for trying to block a South African law that could open the way to cheaper drug supplies. The court case was dropped last month. Novartis spokesman Felix Raeber said Coartem, which is sold in the western world as Riamet for $40 to $50 per course of treatment, would be supplied at no profit in poor countries, including sub-Saharan Africa where malaria is rampant. David Alnwick, head of the anti-malaria programme at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, told Reuters the offer meant Coartem would cost around $2.50 in Africa for a course of adult treatment and $1.50 for a child. Novartis declined to comment on the scale of the price cut. Alnwick said Coartem was an important weapon in the fight against malaria since older medicines were proving increasingly ineffective as the parasite that causes the disease develops resistance. However, even at $2 a day Coartem will remain too expensive for many. "The current anti-malarial drugs cost between 10 and 20 cents per treatment and the sad fact is that those treatments do not get to all that need them even at those prices," he said. "I think we are going to have to find ways of subsiding the price or helping to underwrite the cost of the drug in order to get effective anti-malarial treatments to people that need them." Riamet combines artemether, a traditional Chinese plant-based remedy, and lumefantrine, a synthetic substance that has been shown to work in areas of resistant malaria. Alnwick said the WHO was also working with GlaxoSmithKline Plc to develop other combination therapies against malaria, which kills more than one million people a year, many of them children. -- Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'. 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