Unlike cancer or heart disease, where drugs for patients in richer markets such as the United States and Europe can be instantly and startlingly profitable, two-thirds of people infected with HIV are in impoverished regions in Africa.
But something unexpected is happening: As treating HIV patients in the U.S. and abroad continues to improve, it has turned into a growing profit center for the drug industry.
No company is gaining more from the boom than once little-known Gilead Sciences, a northern California biotechnology outfit that sells medications to more than half of HIV patients around the nation.
The rise in HIV profits is happening for several reasons: Many of the patients on AIDS drugs today are expected to stay on them for years – if not decades – and the trend is to treat the disease earlier.
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment