| "NEW YORK � Former President Bill Clinton announced agreements with drug companies Tuesday to lower the price of so-called �second-line� AIDS drugs for people in the developing world and to make a once-a-day AIDS pill available for less than $1 a day." "The anti-retroviral drugs are needed by patients who develop resistance to first-line treatment and currently cost 10 times as much as first-line therapy, Clinton said. Nearly half a million patients will require these drugs by 2010." "Clinton�s foundation negotiated agreements with generic drug makers Cipla Ltd. and Matrix Laboratories Ltd. that he said would mean an average savings of 25 percent in low-income countries and 50 percent in middle-income countries. He said the companies collaborated with the foundation to lower production costs, in part by securing lower prices for raw materials." "Clinton said the new price of $339 per patient per year would be 45 percent lower than the current rate available to low-income countries and 67 percent less than the price available to many middle-income countries" "�Seven million people in the developing world are in need of treatment for HIV/AIDS,� Clinton said. �We are trying to meet that need with the best medicine available today, and at prices that low and middle-income countries can afford.�" "The Clinton Foundation�s activities are being financed by UNITAID, an organization formed by France and 19 other nations that have earmarked a small portion of their airline tax revenues for HIV/AIDS programs in developing countries." "UNITAID will provide the foundation with more than $100 million to buy second-line medicines for 27
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