ViiV Healthcare, Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline JV Denies Changing Discounts to AIDS Drugs

Middle-income countries with large numbers of people living with HIV will no longer benefit from preferential pricing when buying antiretroviral drugs from large pharmaceutical companies, according to the annual Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) drug pricing report, Untangling the Web of ARV Price Reductions. "The main bad news in the study is the fact that a number of pharmaceutical companies will no longer be providing preferential pricing to middle-income countries like Brazil, China, India and Thailand," Nathan Ford, medical director at MSF's Campaign for Access to Affordable Medicines, said at the launch of the report at the sixth International AIDS Society conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention in Rome.