Clinton Foundation Details Plan to Make Malaria Drugs More Accessible
July 17, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Former President Bill Clinton’s foundation is revealing a pricing agreement today that intends to make malaria drugs more widely available to needy people worldwide, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The agreement will attempt to limit fluctuations in the price of artemisinin, a plant extract that is a key ingredient in antimalarial drugs. Wide swings in the price of the ingredient — from $150 a kilogram to $1,100, according to Chinese producers — make it difficult for companies to plan how much of the drugs they can produce and for governmental health ministries to plan how much they can afford to buy.
The Clinton Foundation agreement is expected to create a consortium of two Chinese raw-artemisinin suppliers, two Indian companies that convert artemisinin into a usable pharmaceutical ingredient, and two Indian generic-drug companies. It will establish a price ceiling for raw artemisinin in return for a promise that other consortium members will purchase large proportions of the plant extract. The deal also slashes the price of one antimalarial drug, known as ASAQ, by nearly one-third.
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