Gilead aims to speed AIDS drugs to poor

Effort is response to critics' protests

Gilead Sciences is stepping up efforts to get more affordable HIV/AIDS treatments to patients in poor countries.

The California biotechnology company, which employs about 100 in Durham, is working to lower the cost of Truvada and is talking with Indian drug makers interested in manufacturing a generic version of Viread. Gilead announced Friday that it reached an agreement with Merck to make Atripla, a pill combining three AIDS drugs, available at a reduced price.

Gilead's efforts were applauded by patient advocates preparing for the start of an international AIDS conference that starts Sunday in Toronto. Many patient advocates had challenged the company to move more quickly.

Five months ago, a dozen members of the Student Global AIDS Campaign chapter at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill zipped themselves into body bags in front of Gilead's Durham operations. The protest was aimed at shaming the company into making Truvada and Viread available to African, Latin American and southeast Asian patients who have become resistant to older drugs.

Marce Abare, a UNC-CH graduate who organized the protest, said it's great to see the company take the protest seriously.

"It shows that taking a stand can make a difference," he said.

"We've made a lot of progress," Student Global AIDS Campaign spokeswoman Caiti Schroering agreed. "If they follow through with what they said, that would make them a leader."

Gilead has every intention of following through, company spokeswoman Amy Flood said. The company has been working with several advocacy groups, she said. As a result, Gilead agreed to speed up paperwork that would give patients in 97 developing countries access to Truvada and Viread at lower prices. The company promised to file the paperwork in the 33 remaining countries by the end of the year.

Gilead is also talking with about 10 Indian drug makers about allowing them to make cheaper, generic versions of Viread, Flood said. The drug makers could export generic Viread to developing countries.

The company's efforts are cutting the cost of Viread and Truvada to less than $1 per day in the poorest countries, such as Uganda. That's a reduction of more than 96 percent from the U.S. wholesale price of about $8,800 for a year's supply, according to Gilead. In countries such as Mexico and Brazil, the price reduction is about 60 percent.

Truvada combines Viread and Emtriva in one pill. Emtriva was developed by Triangle Pharmaceuticals, a Durham drug development company Gilead bought in 2003.

Atripla is a combination of Viread, Emtriva and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Sustiva. In developing countries, Atripla will be a white tablet, to distinguish it from the salmon-colored version that the Food and Drug Administration approved last month for sale in the United States. Merck markets Sustiva outside North America and in parts of Europe.

Several other drug makers with portfolios of HIV/AIDS treatments have programs in place to provide their treatments at much-reduced prices in poor countries, which are home to about three-quarters of the estimated 40 million people worldwide with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

GlaxoSmithKline, a British drug maker with a U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, has signed eight agreements with African and Indian drug makers since 2001 to provide cheaper, generic versions of its HIV/AIDS treatments, Combivir, Retrovir and Epivir, in developing countries.

GSK also had come under fire from advocacy groups. The protests were a public relations problem for the company, which conducts much of its HIV/AIDS drug research in the Triangle. GSK's AIDS drugs are now available for pennies a day in developing countries.

Gilead isn't concerned that generic versions of its treatments will drive down the price of Viread in the United States, Flood said. And in countries that stand to benefit from generic Viread, Gilead supplies the drug at no profit, she said.