[e-drug] Resistant malaria drug costs to be cut

[e-drug@usa.healthnet.org]

E-DRUG: Resistant malaria drug costs to be cut
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[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.

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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.
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