Drug Giant Pledges Cheap Medicine For World's Poor

bmsleight writes in with a Guardian piece on the decision of the world's second biggest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, to radically shift its attitude towards providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing world. "[The new CEO] said that GSK will... cut its prices for all drugs in the 50 least developed countries to no more than 25% of the levels in the UK and US — and less if possible — and make drugs more affordable in middle-income countries such as Brazil and India; put any chemicals or processes over which it has intellectual property rights that are relevant to finding drugs for neglected diseases into a 'patent pool,' so they can be explored by other researchers; and reinvest 20% of any profits it makes in the least developed countries in hospitals, clinics, and staff."

Comments

Re:So, instead of 4x overpriced...

[wisty]

Well Canada is not *that* developing.

Re:Mail order

[johnsie]

The Nigerians are already working on it. In the next few days you should receive an email telling you how to transfer the money.

Re:Dude. What about the World's rich?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, that's real helpful, that is.

Re:Note the double standard

[ColdWetDog]

You don't suffer in horrible agony, become debilitated and lose your job, family, or sanity, or die when you don't get a video card.

I've seen some posts in gamer's forums that don't jibe with that statement.