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New Protease (Prezista®) to be approved in a few days: Will the company price the product fairly?
TMC114/darunavir is the next drug in line and all eyes will be on it the day its price is announced. Its net price must include the cost of a booster drug, Norvir from Abbott Labs, whose price was recently increased by 400% in another demonstration of reckless civic behavior by a pharmaceutical company. While Tibotec isn’t responsible for the price increases taken by others, it is responsible for the decision to use the Norvir booster. Tibotec now has two choices. It can either follow in the footsteps its predecessors, defying the needs of patients and taxpayers, or it can make a bold statement that shows that the industry will do its part to restrain the cost of healthcare.
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Towards the path of least resistance
I’ve been positive since 1983, and like many other long-term survivors, I took each new drug as soon as it became available. Even after combo therapy arrived, I often mixed one new med that worked with others that were already failing. The practice proved to be a recipe for resistance. In the past two years, my T cells have dropped from 580 to 200, and I’m in “salvage therapy,” meaning that I take a combo of drugs to which I have resistance, hoping that together they’ll provide some antiviral action.But soon, I’ll have a new approach to consider
Update on Current Options in the US for HIV-related Facial Wasting
Some of you have emailed me to ask me about my opinions lately on the most popular options for facial reconstruction. I have been following this field for almost 7 years now and my opinions have evolved with time.
I have realized that there is place for each of the facial reconstruction products in the HIV facial wasting field. Initially, I was not impressed after seeing how slowly NewFill (Sculptra in the US) works and how some people with grade 3-4 facial wasting never attained complete reconstruction even after 6 sessions. I also used to believe that permanent solutions were the way to go for cost effectiveness and durability.
I have realized that there is place for each of the facial reconstruction products in the HIV facial wasting field. Initially, I was not impressed after seeing how slowly NewFill (Sculptra in the US) works and how some people with grade 3-4 facial wasting never attained complete reconstruction even after 6 sessions. I also used to believe that permanent solutions were the way to go for cost effectiveness and durability.
The Chipmunk look that nobody talks about
I have been seeing many HIV positive men with enlarged parotid glands in my 14 years of travels giving lectures around the country. I was also one of those men with moderate inflammation of the parotid glands. No one really knows what causes this disfiguring inflammation. It could be due to the HIV virus itself, inflammatory cytokines and too many CD8 cells produced by immune reconstitution, hormones, fat build up in the glands, etc.
The good, the bad and the ugly of HIV medications
I wrote this for Test Positive Aware Network's Positive Aware magazine, one of the best free HIV magazines in the country
Is there a nutritional supplement that can improve HIV lipoatrophy?
Regards,
Nelson Vergel
salvagetherapies dot org
Nelson Vergel
salvagetherapies dot org
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