Novartis To Supply Seven African Countries With ACT Coartem At Cost

The advocacy group Friends of the Global Fight on Tuesday is expected to announce that the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has reached a procurement agreement with Swiss drug maker Novartis to provide $170 million of its antimalarial artemisinin-based combination therapy Coartem in grants to seven African countries, the Wall Street Journal reports. The agreement will provide enough of the drug to treat an anticipated 100 million malaria cases in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Senegal and Angola. The agreement comes amid "spiraling concern" over malaria drug-resistance and recent supply shortages, according to the Journal (Chase, Wall Street Journal, 4/26). Novartis in November 2004 reported that it would be unable to produce sufficient amounts of Coartem because of supply shortages of artemisinin -- the drug's primary ingredient, which is derived from a plant -- and the World Health Organization announced that countries using it as first-line therapy would not receive adequate amounts of the medication until March 2005 (GlobalHealthReporting.org, 4/25). Novartis said that the agreement means the company can begin "scaling up" production of Coartem to 120 million treatments annually by 2006. Novartis Chair and CEO Daniel Vasella said, "While we sell Coartem at cost, our efforts would be in vain without the Global Fund's financial aid to purchase this drug" (Wall Street Journal, 4/26). "The announcement today is important because it means curing 100 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa over the next two years," Friends of the Global Fight President Jack Valenti said, adding, "But it also marks the latest step in an unprecedented global health revolution led by the Global Fund. ... The potential to turn the tide on the malaria epidemic is extraordinary. We must continue to build on this momentum to eradicate this deadly disease" (Friends of the Global Fight release, 4/26).