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Former President Clinton Unveils Plan For Malaria

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Bianca
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« on: July 17, 2008, 08:30:32 pm »










                                   Former President Clinton unveils deal to cut malaria drug prices





By Michelle Nichols
Thu Jul 17, 2008
 
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton unveiled a deal on Thursday with six Chinese and Indian companies to cut a key malaria drug price by a third and slash the price volatility of a vital ingredient by 70 percent.
 
Artemisinin-based combination therapies, or ACT drugs, are recommended by the World Health Organization because of growing resistance to older treatments such as chloroquine.

But the supply of artemisinin, a plant extract long used in Chinese medicine that takes up to 14 months to produce, has been volatile, with prices ranging from $150 to $1,100 a kilogram (2.2 lb) in the past four years.

"We have reached agreement with the suppliers at every level of the production chain from the extraction of the raw ingredient to the manufacturer of the final drug to allow for sustained and lower pricing," Clinton told a news conference.

The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative has struck deals with India's Cipla Ltd and IPCA Laboratories Ltd, which both manufacture ACT drugs, India's Calyx and Mangalam Drugs, which turn the plant extract into an active pharmaceutical ingredient, and China's Holleypharm and PIDI Standard, which grow the plants.

The lower prices will be available to the 69 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean who make up the foundation's purchasing consortium.

Cipla and IPCA have agreed to offer two of the most widely used ACT drugs at lower prices -- artesunate and amodiaquine at or below an average ceiling price of 48 cents per treatment, 30 percent below current market rates, and artemether-lumafantrine at or below an average ceiling price of 91 cents.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2008, 08:33:57 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2008, 08:36:03 pm »









NO SINGLE PLAYER



Malaria, caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes, infects between 300 million and 500 million people each year, killing more than 1 million of them, according to the World Health Organization.

Novartis AG is the dominant ACT drug supplier and the large Swiss company has been able to absorb the volatile costs of artemisinin rather than passing it on to patients. It said it has lost more than $100 million on the drug.

"We know first-hand addressing the health problems of the developing world is challenging and no single player can be successful," said Daniel Vasella, chairman and chief executive officer of Novartis.

Because of the price and supply instability of artemisinin, the foundation said few additional suppliers had entered the market because of the financial risks and if they did, they may not be able to shield patients from costs like Novartis has.

"With rapidly but unevenly growing demand -- and the prospect of a potential global ACT subsidy that could accelerate this growth dramatically -- the risk of volatility in the future remains high," the Clinton Foundation said.

International organizations and governments are considering a multimillion-dollar global subsidy plan for the ACT drugs.

The foundation said the agreements will help to mitigate risk so new suppliers can enter the market and current suppliers like Cipla and IPCA can expand their manufacturing.

The Clinton Foundation said that currently about 100 million doses of ACT drugs are distributed a year. It has forecast that demand for ACT drugs will at least double over the coming four years and could grow to more than 400 million doses annually if a global subsidy plan is agreed.

Malaria causes fever, vomiting, body aches, diarrhea, anemia, loss of concentration, delirium, convulsions, coma and eventually, death.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Eric Walsh)
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« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2008, 08:55:37 pm »










                                      Anti-malaria gene in Africans raises HIV risk





Thu Jul 17, 2008
 
CHICAGO (AFP) - A gene found only in people of African ancestry which evolved to prevent malaria infection now increases the odds of contracting AIDS by up to 40 percent, a new study has found.
 
The gene does, however, seem to protect against the progression of the disease, allowing those carrying it to live about two years longer.

Around 90 percent of people in Africa carry this genetic variant and it may be responsible for 11 percent of the infections there, the study published Wednesday in Cell Host & Microbe found.

"After thousands of years of adaptation, this Duffy variant rose to high frequency because it helped protect against malaria," said co-author Matthew Dolan of the Wilford Hall United States Air Force Medical Center.

"Now, with another global pandemic on the scene, this same variant renders people more susceptible to HIV."

About 68 percent of people infected with HIV live in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations.

The US and British researchers who authored the study said sexual behavior and other social factors do not fully explain large discrepancies in HIV prevalence.

"It's well-known that individuals vary in their susceptibility to HIV and that after infection occurs, the disease progresses at variable rates," said co-author Sunil Ahuja of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System.

"The mystery of variable infection and progression was originally thought to be mainly the result of viral characteristics, but in recent years it has become evident that there is a strong host genetic component."

The gene in question, the Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC), encodes a protein found mainly at the surface of red blood cells.

Earlier studies have shown that HIV can bind to red blood cells through this receptor. The receptor has also been found to bind a wide array of inflammatory molecules, including one which is highly effective in suppressing replication of HIV.

The researchers studied nearly 3,500 people in the US Air Force, including more than 1,200 who are HIV positive, who have been followed for nearly 22 years.

This allowed them to rule out difference in economic status, access to health care and other factors which would generally confound a genetic effect. They found that the prevalence of the variant in African Americans was greater amongst those with HIV than in those without.

Researchers in Canada, meanwhile, have isolated two genes which may prevent people from contracting HIV or at least slow the rate at which they develop AIDS, a second study published Wednesday.

The genes were isolated by comparing the genetic profiles of people in their first year of HIV infection with those who managed to resist infection despite repeated exposure to the virus.

The "good" versions of the two genes were present in 12.2 percent of those who resisted infection compared with only 2.7 of patients in primary HIV infection.

Researchers are not yet sure how this protection works.

One of the gene codes for a receptor on the surface of the immune system's natural killer cells which destroy infected cells in the body.

The other codes for a protein which binds the first gene and dampens the natural killer cell activity.

The most likely explanation is that HIV prevents the protein that dampens the killer cell activity from being expressed, allowing the killer cells to destroy cells infected with HIV.

Since this can happen very soon after the initial infection, people carrying those genes may be able to more efficiently destroy infected cells and lower their chances of developing AIDS.

"More research is needed to determine the exact mechanism behind the protection we have observed, but these findings have revealed a promising avenue," said co-author Nicole Bernard of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.

"In the future, our findings could be used to somehow 'boost' the innate immune system and thus fight the virus as soon as it enters the body."

The study was published Wednesday in the journal AIDS.
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