Reducing commodity costs for ARVs could mean providing treatment to millions more people

"Reducing commodity costs [for antiretroviral drugs] by a mere five to 10 percent can represent hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for the global community. In turn these savings translate into millions of more patients who can receive access to life-saving treatment," David de Ferranti, president of Results for Development Institute (R4D), and Kanika Bahl, managing director at R4D, write in a Huffington Post opinion piece. They discuss a strategic plan for increasing access to and lowering the cost of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) that R4D developed for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

"Taken together, our recommended market strategy could result in savings of $520 million for the global community over five years. Put in context, this could mean that 3.5 million additional patients could have access to a year of life-saving HIV treatment," they write, concluding, "As the world faces tough economic decisions, it is more important than ever to ensure that each dollar is used as efficiently as possible" (8/1).