Malaria drug pricing at center of deal

NEW YORK, July 17 (UPI) -- A plan to help stabilize prices for malaria drugs is the core of an agreement reached by former U.S. President Bill Clinton's foundation, the foundation said.

The pricing agreement between the foundation and a consortium of Chinese suppliers of the raw ingredient, Indian producers who turn it into the active ingredient and two Indian generic-drug producers is expected to make malaria drugs available to millions of poor people, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Fluctuations in the price of the artemisia annua plant -- from which the antimalarial drug's ingredient artemisinin is extracted -- has made it harder to get the drugs to poor nations inexpensively. During the past few years, the price of the key ingredient has been as little as $350 a pound to as much as $2,200, Chinese producers told the Journal.

The agreement seeks to limit price fluctuations. Besides the consortium, it caps the price of the raw artemisinin for a guarantee that consortium members will purchase large proportions of their artemisinin from participating suppliers, unless non-members can offer a product of equal quality at a discount, the Journal said. The deal also reduces one drug's price by about 30 percent.