Negotiations are being held with several big drugs makers  as part of a wider drive to bring the cost of so-called  artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) down to the  level of the older, but now ineffective, chloroquinine  treatments. “I am very hopeful that this first stage, the negotiations,  will produce results,” Michel Kazatchkine, executive director  of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria told  reporters in Paris on Tuesday. The negotiations, part of a program called the Affordable  Medicines Facility - Malaria (AMFm), aim to persuade drugs  companies to cut the price of ACTs to all first-time buyers to  $1, the price currently charged to public sector buyers. The AMFm would then subsidize wholesalers 95 percent of the  cost, enabling them to sell the drugs at prices within reach of  people in some of the world’s poorest countries who may be  living on $1 or $2 a day. Malaria, a disease spread by mosquito-borne parasites, is  contracted by up to 500 million people every year, of whom more  than 1 million die, according to figures from the World Health  Organization. Chloroquinine, one of the former standard treatments for  the disease, has become ineffective in many countries as  resistance levels have grown. But its low cost — around 20 cents a dose compared with  $4-5 for ACTs — makes it far more affordable for people living  in poor African, Asian or Latin American countries where the  disease is most dangerous. Kazatchkine said the program would help drugs companies by  increasing the size of the market for ACTs and make it easier  to predict demand. “We are seeing the market a lot more clearly now,” he said. “Some firms were complaining that they had produced too much of  these medicines. We’re hoping an agreement will enable us to  regulate the flow better so that everyone benefits.”    Swiss drugs maker Novartis and France’s Sanofi are among  the Western companies that make the drug but the sector has  been shaken by the arrival of Chinese and Indian companies like  Cipla    and IPCA Laboratories. “The more firms there are producing these medicines, the  greater the level of competition will be and the more prices  will fall,” Kazatchkine said. He said a sharp increase in malaria funding over recent  years had improved prospects for controlling the disease but  said an extra $1 billion a year was needed. “We have the means to control and combat malaria,” he said. “It would be incomprehensible, shocking now that we are so  close to being able to reduce it really significantly if we  didn’t.”
Malaria campaigners hopeful on drugs pricing deal.