Bayer to produce new Tuberculosis drug at low prices for poor nations

Oct 18 2005

A promising new antibiotic, moxifloxacin, produced by Bayer Healthcare is about to be tested against tuberculosis, a disease that kills 5,000 people a day.

Tuberculosis is also the immediate cause of death for a third of the world's AIDS victims.

Current treatment for the disease usually takes six months, and if, as promised, the new antibiotic substantially shortens TB treatment, the company plans to produce millions of doses to be sold at low prices to poor countries

This decision on the part of Bayer is quite unique as major drug companies, as a rule, do not test their best-selling patented antibiotics against diseases of the poor, and rarely test them against tuberculosis, for fear of jeopardising lucrative sales in rich countries.

At present Bayer makes about $500 million a year from moxifloxacin, which it sells in the United States as Avelox and elsewhere as Avalox, Avelon, Megaxin, Actira and Izilox.

Dr. Wolfgang Plischke, head of Bayer's pharmaceutical division, says the company hopes to achieve $1 billion in annual sales of the drug soon.

Moxifloxacin which was first marketed in 1999, is the company's successor to ciprofloxacin, a related antibiotic that, sold as Cipro and other names, has earned billions of dollars.

Cipro will soon go off patent.

According to experts in the field such as Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, who treats tuberculosis patients in central Harlem and in Durban, South Africa, the new drug is desperately needed, as no new medication has been registered for 40 years.

She says of the few drugs she prescribes for new patients one clashes with an important drug for HIV, which means patients with both the AIDS virus and tuberculosis, which constitutes more than half her New York patients and 80 percent of her African patients, they cannot fight both diseases at the same time.

Dr. El-Sadr says 'every new TB drug is precious, and Bayer is doing a great deal'.

The decision by Bayer is part of a contract with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, a public-private partnership for finding new drugs.

http://www.bayerhealthcare.com/