Money has always been an issue in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Whether the funds were needed for awareness, testing, treatment, outreach... there was never enough.
Recently there's been a splash in the world about Gilead's drug Lenacapavir. Which in trials prevented all occurrences of HIV in the test subjects for over a year with just 2 injections per patient. The results are amazing. You can Google for that.
Here's the rub. This article details how world health organizations see this is the closest thing there will ever been to a vaccine & want it given to everyone at as low a price as possible. Gilead says the med is for treatment only & not prevention.
The cost is prohibitive at $42K+ annually. The world organizations are pushing for a generic. A study mentioned in the article, states the medication could be produced for as low as $40.00 using the ingredients of Lenacapavir. That would still leave a profit margin of 30%. If $40 using generic ingredients leaves that kind of profit, how many thousands of times profit is Gilead clearing off of $42+K?
This is an interesting article with an old argument of prevention vs profit. We'll have to wait to see how this plays out. Countries could pass laws overriding Gilead's claims & produce the medication generically. That may be the only way this ever happens.
Take care.
Cya...
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