HIV patients in Africa ‘to pay only $75 a year’ for new state-of-art drugs

India-based Mylan Laboratories and Aurobindo Pharma, makers of generic HIV drugs, are set to make millions of pills available to African countries.

Reuters reports that the development is coming after both firms secured a multi-million dollar guarantee from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, making it possible to cap the price at just $75 per patient a year.

The drugs are currently being used in financially buoyant countries including the UK and US.

Under the deal, Mylan and Aurobindo will ramp up availability of a new fixed-dose combination of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, lamivudine and dolutegravir (TLD).

Health ministries and other public sector purchasers will be able to buy TLD from next year at the capped price.

As well as improving treatment, the drug combination should also reduce the need for more expensive second and third-line drugs.

The agreement, which will make the treatment available to 92 poor countries, starting in Africa, will be formally announced at the United Nations general assembly in New York on Thursday.

According to the United Nations AIDS Agency (UNAIDS), around 37 million people around the world are infected with HIV, but about 19.5 million patients get antiretroviral therapy medicines to keep their disease in check.