Pfizer/Agouron, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim To Increase Financial Assistance to State ADAPs
The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors yesterday announced that Pfizer/Agouron, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim have agreed to partner with the ADAP Crisis Task Force to increase financial assistance to federal-state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs, according to a NASTAD release (NASTAD release, 7/9). ADAPs, which are state-managed, federally funded programs, provide HIV treatment to low-income, uninsured and underinsured HIV-positive individuals. As of last month, fifteen states had waiting lists or access restrictions on their ADAPs, and six more states anticipated having to impose new or additional restrictions on their programs in fiscal year 2003, according to a NASTAD report released last month (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 6/24). ADAP representatives from California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Texas -- states that collectively account for 75% of the more than $850 million in annual ADAP drug expenditures -- since March have been negotiating with representatives from Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, Abbott Laboratories, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb to discuss ways of alleviating the budget shortfalls that state ADAPs are currently facing (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/1). Under the new agreement, Pfizer has offered to temporarily provide its antiretroviral drugs Viracept and Rescriptor for free or at steep discounts until Congress reconsiders ADAP funding levels in 2005 (Long Island Newsday, 7/10). GSK will provide $20 million in aid to state ADAPs, in addition to the estimated $90 million in rebates and price reductions the company expects to provide to state ADAPs in 2004 (GSK release, 7/9).
Seven Companies Have Agreed To Help
State ADAPs previously reached agreements with Gilead, Abbott, Merck and Hoffman-LaRoche to freeze drug prices and provide rebates on the companies' antiretroviral drugs. Gilead recently extended its special pricing for ADAPs to its new antiretroviral drug Emtriva. Negotiations with BMS are ongoing. The agreements with the seven companies amount to an additional $50 million in ADAP assistance, which is "substantial in a year when the current federal fiscal year appropriations only netted an increase of $75 million," Dwayne Haught, ADAP coordinator in Texas, said, adding, "Initial increases for ADAP programs in FY 2004 in both House and Senate subcommittees ($39 million and $25 million, respectively) are far less than the savings these partnerships have achieved for ADAP programs" (NASTAD release, 7/9).