On or around October 7, a South African affiliate of Cipla, the Indian generic pharmaceutical company, filed legal action in South Africa, accusing GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim, the maker of nevirapine, of abusing their patents to keep pri
On October 7 GlaxoSmithKline said it would grant a voluntary license to Aspen Pharmacare, South Africa's largest generic drug company, to manufacture and sell AZT and 3TC -- a move sought by activists as well as by Aspen. Apparently this license will
According to an October 9 article in the Financial Times, the London-based company Anglo American decided it could not provide antiretroviral treatment to most of its employees in South Africa. Only about 14,000 senior staff will be eligible for the A
The most complete recent list we have seen of anti-HIV drugs in development -- over 60 total, including the approved drugs -- was posted recently by Ben Cheng of Project Inform, on the Web site of the new AIDS Treatment Activist Coalition. The
Our last issue had the inside pages out of order, due to a printing error. Each individual page is printed and numbered correctly, so the newsletter can be read as intended by following the page numbers, instead of the layout. Note that the column beg
"To help journalists and others interested in HIV/AIDS issues, the Kaiser Family Foundation has created a World AIDS Day web page, http://www.kff.org/worldaidsday/" World AIDS Day is December 1. There is little central organizing; instead, loc
In the U.S. Congress, 8 Senators and more than 70 Representatives have signed a Dear Colleague letter seeking 1.2 billion dollars in emergency supplemental funding for the global AIDS crisis. The letter will soon be sent to President Bush. Des
A November 7 press report ("All-Purpose Drugs Are Being Tested," by Jeff Donn, The Associated Press) surveyed some of the work being done on finding drugs to treat many diseases -- the opposite of the traditional "magic bullet" approach of targeting o
A small and difficult T-20 expanded-access program will begin receiving phone calls from U.S. physicians on November 27 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The first 56 eligible physicians will be accepted. Each physician must have exactly 3 patients who quali
On October 26 the FDA approved Viread (tm) -- generic name tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, or tenofovir DF. The approval was expected; less expected was the broad indication, which both the company and treatment activists wanted, but which some of the
The 12th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, February 22-25, 2005, in Boston, has nine different deadlines, three of them on November 23: Community Educator Program Applications, Community Press Applications, and International Scholarship Applications. Note that some people will need to obtain a scholarship even if they do not need the money, as otherwise they will not be allowed into the conference, which is not open to everyone.
"Community Press" means AIDS newsletters, etc. ("Consumer Press"--New York Times, Washington Post, etc.--has a much later application deadline, but its reporters also must register in advance in order to attend.)
For more information visit http://www.retroconference.org. For the deadlines, click 'Dates to Remember'. And for instructions on registering as press, click 'Media Participation'. For instructions for community educators or international scholarship applicants, click 'Travel Grants and Scholarships'.
COPYRIGHT 2004 John S. JamesCOPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group