'The great billion dollar drug scam'

part one from aljazeera...........

"Alongside pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis and pneumonia, rotavirus-related diarrhoea is a primary childhood killer in developing countries, thought to snuff out the lives of 500,000 children each and every year. An overwhelming 85 per cent of these children are African and Asian. The need for medical miracles is as great as ever, but corporate mispricing generates huge profits, while driving up the price of life saving medicines.
British-based drug corporation GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) recently offered a five-year deal to supply poor nations with 125 million doses of the rotavirus vaccine - Rotarix - at $2.50 a dose, just five per cent of the current going price in Western markets. Through the GAVI group, the international vaccine agency financed by developed nations such as the UK, it is hoped that GSK and pharmaceutical multinational Merck - who, between them, dominate the rotavirus vaccine market - will provide a secure line of low-cost drugs for as many as forty countries in the near future.

But is it really a discount, and if so, who is paying the cost?

The financing mechanism subsidising the vaccine is named the Advance Market Commitment (AMC), a pot created by the G8, as well as the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, as a "pull" incentive for drug multinationals to consider developing countries' long-term markets for pharmaceutical "public goods", such as vaccines. Rotarix has taken off well: Since 2007, some 50 million children - through 100 million doses - have already benefited from Rotarix; by 2009, global Rotarix sales reached $440 million - increasing by 50 per cent from 2008, and Merck'sRotateq reach $564 million in sales.
GSK Chief executive Andrew Witty described the pricing structure as, "neither a gimmick nor a one-off philanthropic gesture", but rather "part of a concerted strategy to change our business model" - designed to combine "commercial success with long-term sustainable contributions"...........READ MORE

read part two.........READ HERE