ACT UP AWARDS GOLDEN URN TO:
Hoffman LaRoche
for killer pricing policies and indifference to AIDS.
We are presenting another Golden Urn award to Hoffman "the Roach"
for their long tradition of placing corporate greed above the lives of people
living with AIDS. The obscene price of their new protease inhibitor, Invirase,
is one more link in a never-ending chain of profiteering.
In the United States, their prices for Invirase and Hivid (Roche's nucleoside
analog) are bankrupting government programs which provide drugs to low-
and moderate-income people living with AIDS.
Riche was the first company to sell a protease inhibitor, and the price
they chose ($7,2000 annually) set the standard for the market. The company
demands this high price even though they admit that Invirase is poorly-absorbed
and under-dosed in its current form. Roche has refused repeated requests
by activists to justify its price by allowing a confidential independent
review of its actual research and manufacturing costs.
Roche also displayed contempt for seriously-ill people living with AIDS
by delaying its compassionate release program for so long that Invirase
was fully-approved before the program was up and running. Consequently,
many of those slated to receive free Invirase in this manner ended up being
charged for it.
ACT UP sees Roche's greed
Roche has also turned its back on teen-agers living with HIV/AIDS
be refusing to lower the age limit of theor clinical trials to 13 years,
as other companies have done.
Adolescents' bodies absorb drugs similarly to adults so there is no reason
to exclude them from studies which woul dprovide important data, as well
as providing young people access to their drugs. Roche has also dragged
its feet on important pediatric studies of its products, such as Invirase.
