E-drug: TB drug prices fall 94% (cont'd)
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Here is an MSF press release on the price reductions for drugs to
treat multi-drug resistant TB which might answer some of the
questions posted on e-drug.
Ellen 't Hoen, LL.M.
MSF- Access to Essential Medicines Campaign
8, rue Saint-Sabin, 75544 Paris Cedex 11
tel: + 33 (0) 1 40212836
fax: + 33 (0) 1 48066868
e-mail: ellen.t.hoen@paris.msf.org
Web-site: www.accessmed-msf.org
MSF PRESS RELEASE
Price of drug-resistant tb treatments fall by as much as 96%:
New Approach to Drug Procurement Enables More to be Treated
New York/Geneva, July 19, 2001
In a paper released today in the online edition of the journal
Science, public health experts and scientists from the World Health
Organization (WHO), Harvard Medical School, and the international
medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
reveal how a joint approach to overcoming the global market failure
to make second-line treatments for MDR-TB available in poor
countries has cut the price of treatment regimens by up to 96%.
Rising at an alarming rate in many countries, MDR-TB has become a
threat to the control of standard TB - a disease that kills as many as
3 million people every year. Up until now, treatment of MDR-TB has
been prohibitively expensive, costing around $13,000 per patient.
"Responding to Market Failures in Tuberculosis Control" shows how
the WHO, Harvard Medical School and MSF have worked together
to dramatically reduce the prices for MDR-TB drugs by defining the
market, negotiating bulk purchases with suppliers, and ensuring
rational use of the drugs. Acting as a negotiator for all parties, MSF
consolidated the various sources of demand, negotiated prices,
provided advance funds for bulk purchase and assisted with
technical support. The WHO has created a regulatory mechanism
called the "Green Light Committee" to promote safe access to the
drugs.
As a result, the price of one of the essential drugs in MDR-TB
treatment, clycloserine, went down by 96% from $3.38 to $0.14.
The drug is currently only available from one supplier. The cost of
another drug, ofloxacin, because of competition through tendering,
went down by 87.25% from $2.60 to $0.33.
"In some countries where MSF works, significant numbers of TB
patients have multi-drug resistant TB, but they are not treated with
drugs that could save their life because the cost is around $13,000
per patient," says Bernard P�coul, MD, director of MSF's Campaign
for Access to Medicines and one of the authors of the paper. "This
project proves that with an organized system of procurement,
prices can be reduced down dramatically and people with this form
of TB will no longer be condemned to death."
The paper shows that if countries continue their spending trend on
MDR-TB drugs as they did between 1998-2000 they could save as
much as 93.6%. Nicaragua for example currently spends 14.9% of
their TB control budget on second line drugs; these discounted
prices would bring this down to 2.7%.
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