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The pharmaceutical industry isn't motivated by altruism. Last April, Gilead Sciences - the maker of Atripla - proudly announced in a press release that its profit had climbed by 21 percent in the first Quarter of 2009 directly as a result of increased sales of Atripla and Truvada. Had I a few billion Euros/Dollars/etc lying around, I'd gladly offer to give it all as a prize to be awarded the first drug company to find a final cure for HIV. I doubt if any government would ever propose such an award, but there are enough truly wealthy people in the world who might be able to award what would be the ultimate Nobel prize. This suggestion isn't as goofy as it might seem. Alfred Nobel died in 1896, yet his name has become a the ultimate synonym for achievement. A "Gates" prize? A "Trump" prize? Oh well, we can dream...
Hello Peter Thank you for including this important information in your blog. I don't know about other readers, but the report card .jpeg isn't opening for me. I'll try later from another computer. I look forward (sort of?) to reading the NYT piece and am glad to learn of the group's goal of getting pharmaceutical firms to structure realistic and fair ARV (and related meds?)pricing for lifetime or potentially lifetime consumers. Em
Anon
Peter - regarding the ATAC's grades on recruiting of minority and women. I used to work in clinical trial research on the investigative site side of things, and it was incredibly difficult to get people of color into our trials. There was no specific reason, but it included availability (site hours vs. participant working hours), comorbid diagnoses, translation issues (using a site translator costs >$100/hr, and over the course of 6-10 visits of 1-4 hrs each time, it's practically the cost of an extra study participant). Also, no ethics board (IRB) would ever allow gender or race-specific recruitment strategies.
September 15, 2009