Indeed. It sucks, but developing the quasi-vaccine thing and proving it works seems pretty cool, regardless of what comes next. Sure beats chasing pills for boners and hair loss.
Now things look good for this drug (after decades of false starts on long-acting HIV vaccines and prophylactics). And MSF and the usual (tireless, wonderful, humane) vocal advocates seem to be calling for affected countries to license production compulsively should Gilead attempt to license it on bad-faith terms. Seems like a good sign, though I’m not in a position to understand how serious those kinds of threats might be.
Wish I could access the session about this $40/pppy cost estimate, but the abstract seems to be here:
The way the abstract is phrased, it sounds to me to be in the spirit of “we’re doing this cost analysis because we bet this stuff will soon become available to the worst-affected regions at close to that price, with or without Gilead doing the right thing. So we figure we should see how that fits into our public health planning.”
Could be a total misreading, but a person can hope :)
I didn't realize how much Gilead does.
Yeah, the reality of drug costs leaves no great options.
It's capitalism.
Capitalism leads both to breakthroughs and to expensive drugs.
It's just a sad situation all around.
But, it's awesome to hear what companies are trying to do.