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Friday, April 01, 2005

Jeff Sachs's math on ARV drugs 

I was at a public lecture by Jeff Sachs yesterday, which was part of his nationwide promotion tour for his new book, The End of Poverty (more on the book in a later post). One of the statistics he threw out grabbed my attention. Sachs said that the cost of a single dose of ARV treatment for HIV/AIDS in Africa had dropped to $0.30 per day. Sachs has clearly worked out the costs for fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa (outlined in the book) under the assumption that he will continue to get drugs at these cheap prices.

The spanner in the works is the Indian Patent Bill, which I have posted about earlier (I, II). A very large part of sub-Saharan Africa's ARV drugs comes from CIPLA and Ranbaxy. If the new patent bill becomes law, the current ARV drugs are not under threat. However, if any new anti-AIDS drugs enter the market, neither CIPLA nor Ranbaxy will be allowed to make generic versions, and this will almost certainly mean that sub-Saharan Africa will be at the mercy of the pharma giants for access. Not a very pleasant thought, is it, especially when you consider their shenanigans in South Africa not so long ago?

It also affects the costing structure that Jeff Sachs has worked out in his book. If he cannot access drugs at $0.30 a dose, his numbers don't work out. I wanted to ask him yesterday how he could control for variables such as India's new patent law, but never got the chance to ask. If I ever do put the question to him, I'll be sure to update the blog on his thoughts on this issue.

Full Disclosure -- Jeff Sachs used to be my boss, in principle, at the Earth Insitute.