Naked protesters from Act Up London stormed the building of Gilead Sciences the other day to protest the exorbitant high cost of the antiretroviral drug Truvada, that they produce and is used widely in the treatment of HIV.
Spokesperson Dani Singer of ACT UP London said, “ Globally, more than two billion people do not have regular access to the critical medicines they need. This is one in three of the world’s population. Every year, 10 million people die from diseases because drug pricing blocks access to effective treatments. One reason for this is the high cost of medicines under patent protection.”
Only last month NHS in the UK controversially stalled plans to make Truvada available as an HIV prevention drug through pre-exposure prevention (PrEP) treatment – in spite of their only study showing it can drastically reduce the chance of HIV infection by up to 86 percent. Health minister Jane Ellison trotted the same old excuse that Authorities have trotted out for years to justify their lack of action by saying that more trials were required to prove that the drug is “cost effective”.
Singer summed it up “Every year, 10 million people die from diseases because drug pricing blocks access to effective treatments. One reason for this is the high cost of medicines under patent protection.”
