Our corporate
targets are the billion dollar drug “big hitters” for the Western
world.
For a long time we weren’t interested in AIDS drugs at
all.
We think we’ve got a big hit with EXit, but not if we are going to
give it away. Sales of MIdex
are likely to drop sharply. We’re
going to have problems if we don’t plow profits from our big hitters like
EXit into the company.
Millennium Pharmaceuticals, along with the other major firms in the
industry has agreed to change our
pricing policy for HIV/AIDS medications in the developing world.
That’s likely to lower profits from $21.8 million (cited by our
Treasurer, Bratton) to $18 million.
There are limits to what else we can do.
We
should not convert our expensive production facilities to make drugs for free
or rock-bottom prices. We stopped making vaccines because the profit
margin was so low. We
have stockholders to protect. If
they see our profit margin declining, they’ll sell the stock.
My fiduciary
responsibility as a member of the Board
is to the shareholders. Maintaining shareholder value and furthering
investment in our firm will allow us to respond to the health needs of society
through research and development of medications for the future. If
profitability falls, investment in future life-saving medicines may decrease.
Our responsibility is to do what we do best - continue to provide cutting edge
research to enhance global health.
Personally, I don’t
believe that any one firm, industry, government, or global organization can resolve the problems
associated with the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.
Limits need to be established on how much one industry can provide either free
or at a substantial discount. And
the limit starts here. Already AIDS
activist groups are trying to get us to reduce the price of AIDS drugs in the
US.
African for-profit mining
corporations want to treat their miners with HIV/AIDS to enable a healthy
workforce, yet, they are not willing to pay for treatment. They want us to
donate the medicines to them. No,
those corporations should pay.
