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Mon Jan 20, 2:18 PM ET
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By ALEX POLIER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — As competition among makers of HIV drugs increases, GlaxoSmithKline is using perhaps America's best-known HIV carrier to spread awareness among urban blacks of treatment methods and its products.
Earvin "Magic" Johnson's image is being splashed on billboards, subway posters and full-page ads in newspapers and magazines. The ads include photos of a robust-looking Johnson and feature messages such as, "Staying healthy is about a few basic things: A positive attitude, partnering with my doctor, taking my medicine every day."
The market leader in HIV treatments with its drug Combivir, GlaxoSmithKline said its campaign is being conducted in cities with the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection among blacks, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta and Newark, N.J.
The campaign also includes educational ads and a speaking tour by Johnson. It is similar to campaigns that have used athletes, movie stars and other celebrities to promote awareness about and specific drugs for arthritis, depression and other conditions.
But the GlaxoSmithKline campaign is the first of its kind for HIV, which has created particularly sensitive issues of price and profit for the pharmaceutical industry.
"The new wave of this disease is moving toward minorities, specifically African-Americans," said Peter Hare, vice president of GlaxoSmithKline's HIV business unit. "More African-Americans are dying from AIDS than white people. So, from a business perspective, if you want more patients, you have to focus on the African-American community."
Johnson, diagnosed with HIV 11 years ago, does not have full blown AIDS. To maintain his health, the basketball Hall of Famer takes a combination of GlaxoSmithKline and non-GlaxoSmithKline drugs, including Combivir, the most commonly prescribed HIV drug and one of GlaxoSmithKline's best sellers.
New alternatives, including generics, are turning what was once a limited market into one of fierce competition. Products such as Crixivan and Stocrin made by Merck & Co., and Kaletra and Norvir, made by Abbott Laboratories Inc., pose a threat to GlaxoSmithKline's profits.
GlaxoSmithKline still controls about 50 percent of the market for HIV drugs, with sales topping $1.1 billion in 2001, the most recent year for which comprehensive figures are available.
"So if anyone complies with their treatment, or if new African-Americans start using HIV drugs there will be some benefit for us," Hare said. "But this campaign is beneficial for everyone. There is something in it for African-Americans with HIV, for doctors, and yes, something in it for Magic and for GlaxoSmithKline."
Many major drug companies have educational AIDS campaigns. Abbott, for instance, sponsors free testing at local community AIDS organizations to help raise awareness among blacks.
The Magic Johnson campaign "is good no matter what company is conducting it, as long as it raises awareness about testing and prevention," said Nicole Wesley, an Abbott spokeswoman.
AIDS is the leading cause of death for blacks between the ages of 24 and 44. One in 50 black men and one in 160 black women are believed to be HIV positive today. About one in three does not know he or she has it.
Hare said the traditional methods of marketing HIV drugs do not always reach blacks.
"This group doesn't particularly trust the health care system," he said. "Research shows that they want someone they believe. And they believe in Magic Johnson."
For a long time, rumors abounded that Johnson had been cured or was on some secret treatment formula. According to the company, Johnson, who was not available for comment, feels this campaign gives him a chance to further dispel those rumors.
"We are trying to get across that Magic looks good because Magic takes his meds everyday, not because he is taking some tailored potion," Hare said. "The stuff he takes is available to everyone."
HIV treatment is expensive. The drugs are usually taken in combination with one another, and each can cost from $1,500 to $6,700 a year in the United States.
GlaxoSmithKline and other leading HIV drug makers froze prices last year as a gesture to the AIDS community, but some activist groups are unhappy that the companies are not offering any low-cost incentives along with the publicity campaign.
"Telling people to get tested and seek treatment and not providing the resources is corporate irresponsibility," says Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the country's largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care.
"The only issue left to tackle with AIDS is the cost of medication," he said. "There are so many educational and care programs, but no one is getting drugs."
He said the GlaxoSmithKline campaign is clearly a commercial for its products, but is helpful anyway.
"It's identity advertising. But it's inspiring. Putting Magic out there to people is a very positive thing. He is the ultimate symbol of living well with HIV," he said.
Marty Algaze, communications director for the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, believes an important first step in reaching blacks is showing that an HIV diagnosis is not a death sentence.
"If Magic can get more people to get tested and get on HIV drugs than I am all for it," Algaze said.
"It is important to reach out to the most infected communities," said Jules Levine, an HIV-positive AIDS activist. "This is a hard group to reach. It's important to understand that different communities need different messages and different spokespeople."
While some activists believe that this campaign will raise AIDS awareness among blacks, others like Martin Delaney, founding director of Project Inform, an AIDS advocacy group in San Francisco, thinks it's all about the bottom line.
"Anything Magic does to increase treatment in the black community will be great for them (GlaxoSmithKline) since they are the market leader," he said. "They don't have to hit people over the head with a message about their drugs since they have market control."
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Thu Jan 23, 6:51 AM ET
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By MARGIE MASON, Associated Press Writer
HANOI, Vietnam - In an effort to slow the spread of HIV and AIDS in Vietnam, the United States launched a US$600,000 program Thursday to promote education in the workplace about the disease.
The program aims to prevent further infection and help to make workplaces more tolerable for those already infected.
"If people are having unprotected sex, they'll probably go in and talk about condom use," said Jennifer Bacchus, a representative for the U.S. Department of Labor. "If there's a big drug problem, they'll talk about needles and those sort of issues."
The program also will work with employers on how to be more understanding when employees get tested, regardless of the results.
"We will encourage people to be tested, to keep the results confidential and to provide counseling and support," said Patrick Burke, project coordinator from the Academy for Educational Development, an American non-governmental organization. "It's an idea whose time has come."
Burke's group is coordinating the project, funded by U.S. Department of Labor.
In the early 1990s, several workers in Vietnam were fired after testing HIV-positive. As a result, many infections likely went undetected because employees didn't want to be tested for fear of being ostracized.
"Part of the program is to try to decrease the discrimination and stigma," Bacchus said. "They plan to explain to employers (that) just because somebody is HIV-positive, it doesn't mean they cannot work. They need to come up with a way to support them. And that doesn't mean firing them, but helping them get the help they need."
Health experts estimate there are 135,000 HIV-infected people in Vietnam, with intravenous drug users believed to be the biggest risk group.
Official government figures say there are some 56,000 infections and have been more than 4,600 deaths since the country's first case was reported in 1990.
The United States is funding similar programs in
the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the Ukraine.
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Thu Jan 23, 6:20 PM ET
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By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A controversial marketing consultant who once called AIDS a "gay plague" withdrew his name from consideration for a presidential advisory panel on Thursday after news reports of his anti-homosexual stance.
Jerry Thacker, who is infected with the AIDS virus, withdrew in a letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, an HHS spokesman said.
Thacker was sharply criticized by AIDS and gay rights groups for his stance on homosexuals and his characterization of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as a "gay plague." They reacted with fury when they learned he had been asked to serve on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
"I feel I must withdraw my name from consideration to serve at this time due to my and my family's personal concern about my ability to be effective with the Council given the current controversy," Thacker wrote in the letter.
Gay rights groups welcomed the news.
"He is an ideological extremist and has no business advising the president on any matter," David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign said in a telephone interview.
"But the underlying problems with this administration's approach to AIDS and HIV remains. Their single-minded focus on abstinence as the only mechanism for preventing the transmission of HIV is unrealistic, not based on science and could cause enormous harm. This administration continues to approach AIDS and HIV from an ideological point of view rather than a science-based point of view."
Thacker was infected with the virus by his wife, who herself was infected through a blood transfusion. A consultant living in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, he wrote a book entitled "When AIDS Comes Home," which his Web site characterizes as "the story of a Christian family suddenly struck by the AIDS virus."
AIDS A WORRY FOR 'BAD PEOPLE'
His biography at the Web site, found at http://www.scepter.org/founder.asp, formerly read: "Before 1986, Jerry Thacker was probably a lot like you. He had a beautiful family, a good church, and a rewarding ministry. He knew vaguely about the 'gay plague' known as AIDS, but it seemed a distant threat. AIDS was something that bad people had to worry about. Not Christians. Not the church."
It has now been rewritten to read, "the plague known as AIDS."
Thacker said in his letter that the wording was taken out of context. "For example, the term 'gay plague' was in vogue in the mid 1980s as this disease first took its toll on that population," he wrote in his letter to Thompson.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush does not share Thacker's characterization of AIDS and the virus that causes it. "That remark is far removed from what the president believes," Fleischer told reporters.
"The president's view is people with AIDS need to be treated with care, compassion. And that's why his budget has provided so much money to help in the fight against AIDS."
AIDS campaigners regularly complain that Bush has underfunded AIDS research and treatment.
On Wednesday Physicians for Human Rights
released a letter signed by Dr. Antonia Novello, who was surgeon general under
former President George Bush; Dr. Julius Richmond, former President Jimmy
Carter's surgeon general; and 95 other prominent doctors urging more funding for
AIDS, especially in the developing world.
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Fri Jan 24, 5:20 AM ET
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DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Pharmacia Corp. said on Friday it had reached an agreement with a non-profit Dutch group to allow generic drugmakers to sell cheaper versions of its AIDS drug in poor countries.
The tie-up with the International Dispensary Association Foundation (IDA) is the latest example of pharmaceutical companies bowing to pressure to increase access to HIV/AIDS treatments, particularly in Africa.
Under the deal, Pharmacia will grant non-exclusive licenses to its sole AIDS medicine, Rescriptor, to generic pharmaceutical companies that agree to supply it to patients in the developing world.
Up to 78 countries could be included in the program, including all of those in sub-Saharan Africa, the Peapack, New Jersey-based company said in a statement released at the World Economic Forum.
Pharmacia will transfer its manufacturing know-how and regulatory dossier for the drug -- known generically as delavirdine -- to IDA, empowering the agency to select any generic drug firm to make the pills.
The move by Pharmacia to allow generic versions of its drug in numerous countries follows a decision in 2001 by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world's biggest AIDS drugmaker, to grant a voluntary license to South African generic firm Aspen for three of its medicines -- AZT, 3TC and Combivir drugs. That deal, however, only covered one generic firm in one country.
Leading drugmakers also launched a preferential
pricing scheme in May 2000 following intense pressure for price cuts in Africa,
the epicenter of the global pandemic. Critics, however, say the best way to
bring down prices is to encourage generic production rather than keeping control
of supplies in the hand of big western companies.
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Fri Jan 24,10:45 AM ET
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By Ben Hirschler, European Pharmaceuticals Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - Pharmacia Corp. of the U.S. said on Friday it had reached an agreement with a non-profit Dutch group to allow generic drugmakers to sell cheaper versions of its AIDS drug in poor countries.
The tie-up with the International Dispensary Association Foundation (IDA) is the latest example of pharmaceutical companies bowing to pressure to increase access to life-saving HIV/AIDS treatments, particularly in Africa.
But the move got mixed reviews from AIDS activists who pointed out the drug, Rescriptor, was not a leading treatment for the killer disease and was less convenient to take than rival products.
"We think this is a 'good news, bad news' story," Daniel Berman of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres told Reuters.
"It's a nice model, but this drug is not recommended by the WHO (World Health Organization and is not on the essential medicines list of the WHO."
Under the deal, Pharmacia -- which is shortly to merge with Pfizer Inc. -- will grant non-exclusive licenses for its sole AIDS medicine to generic pharmaceutical companies that agree to supply it to patients in the developing world. Up to 78 countries could be included in the program, including all of sub-Saharan Africa, the Peapack, New Jersey-based company said in a statement released at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Pharmacia will transfer to IDA its manufacturing know-how and regulatory dossier for the drug -- known generically as delavirdine -- empowering the agency to select any generic drug firm to make the pills.
Rescriptor is marketed by a unit of Pfizer in the U.S.
The move by Pharmacia to allow generic versions of its drug in numerous countries follows a decision in 2001 by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world's biggest AIDS drugmaker, to grant a voluntary license to South African generic firm Aspen for three of its medicines -- AZT, 3TC and Combivir.
That deal, however, only covered one generic firm in one country and has been criticized by activists as ineffective.
A spokesman for Treatment Action Campaign, a leading AIDS activist pressure group in South Africa, said it wanted to see more non-exclusive deals along the lines of Pharmacia's agreement, rather the limited arrangement between GSK and Aspen.
"We welcome the announcement by Pharmacia as a positive move but what we want to know is why (other companies) are not doing the same thing," he said.
LANCET
The Pharmacia/IDA program is based on an approach outlined by representatives of the company, IDA and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in the current issue of the medical journal The Lancet.
Until now, leading drugmakers have been reluctant to award non-exclusive licenses to generic firms, fearing that widespread production of copycat medicines will increase the risk of cut-price drugs leaking back into premium western markets.
Instead, they have focused on offering preferential prices on branded medicines under a scheme launched in conjunction with the United Nations AIDS program in May 2000, following calls for price cuts in Africa, the epicenter of the pandemic.
Critics, however, say the best way to bring down prices is to encourage generic production rather than keeping control of supplies in the hand of big western companies.
"This issue shows the flaws in the current system which leaves it totally up to the companies whether they make their drugs accessible or not," said MSF's Berman.
Pharmaceutical companies said earlier this month they were increasing the supply AIDS medicines to Africa but acknowledged that current efforts only scratched the surface of the problem.
Industry figures show at some 36,000 Africans were receiving cut-price HIV/AIDS drugs at the end of March 2002 -- a four-fold increase over the previous 18 months but still only 0.01 percent of those infected on the continent.
(Additional reporting by Wambui Chege in
Johannesburg)