WSJ.com - G-8 Nations Shape Plan to Fight Diseases

WSJ.com - G-8 Nations Shape Plan to Fight Diseases: "The U.S. and its wealthy allies are moving to approve a first-of-its-kind plan to encourage pharmaceuticals companies to develop vaccines for diseases that afflict countries too poor to afford them.

Finance ministers from the Group of Eight major industrialized powers, who met here this weekend, expect to approve a pilot project when they next get together, in Washington in April.

Under an advance market commitment plan, the G-8 nations would promise to subsidize the purchase of new vaccines -- for between $800 million and $6 billion -- if pharmaceuticals companies develop ones that meet standards of efficacy and safety. Once the G-8 spends the pledged amount, the drug companies would sell the vaccine at a set discount in the developing world.

The idea is to ensure that companies get a substantial, upfront, government-backed financial incentive to develop the drugs, even if they ultimately have to sell them at a low price. 'By restoring appropriate incentives,' advance market commitments 'can stimulate private research and investment, accelerate the discovery of new vaccines, save lives and contribute to economic development in a cost-effective way,' Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti wrote in a report to his G-8 colleagues in December.

Advised by the World Bank and other outside experts, G-8 negotiators are working through details, including which of six Third World killers should be the test case: HIV/AIDS; malaria; tuberculosis; pneumococcus, a source of pneumonia and meningitis; rotavirus, which causes fatal diarrhea in children; or human papillomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer."