And just really like someone had beat me up - just that achy all over. I would say between 20, it had gotten progressively worse - just really achy, like achy inside my bones. So David did well on this pill for a while, but then something started to change for him. But the drug rep has really been pushing this - touting it, really, as the miracle medication. This doctor, he says, well, you’re doing well on the three medications you’re on. It prevents the HIV virus from replicating. And the key ingredient in Truvada is a version of something called tenofovir. It really became a game changer in the fight against AIDS. Many patients had less severe side effects on Truvada. And that’s because it was really effective. I remember it was a big deal when it came out. Today, it’s used for both preventing HIV and treating it. And in 2004, a drug company called Gilead released a drug called Truvada. It went from a cocktail of a bunch of pills to one pill a day. rebecca robbinsīut over time, the medications became easier to take - fewer side effects, more convenient. And I was pretty much - I had lost some weight and I didn’t look really healthy, but I was able to regain the weight and continue. I’d much rather be alive than the option which wasn’t good. They were really challenging for patients to take. But the first versions of these drugs had some really tough side effects. And that’s because by that point, drug companies were making huge strides in treating HIV with powerful new medications. So when David got his HIV diagnosis in the mid-1990s, he thought it was a death sentence. I’d go move the vehicle, go up on Sunday night to see them, and find out they were dead. Can you move my car so it doesn’t get towed away and then bring it up to me in the hospital on Monday? OK, so no problem. They’d call me on Friday and say, David, I parked my car in a bad spot. Like 80 percent of my friends had died in a six-year period. He had a huge number of friends that he lost. I’d lived through all that AIDS epidemic from - I lived in San Francisco from 1978 until 1984. And when he got his diagnosis, his mind immediately turned to his worst fears. What was going through your head at that moment? david swisher And finally, after two nights in the hospital, one of the young interns, she came in and she just says, well, we figured out what’s wrong with you. I have the flu.Īfter the third time I went in there really, really not feeling good, someone was smart enough to send me upstairs and say let’s do a workover on this guy and see what’s going on. I kept going into the emergency room for a week telling them, I feel bad. It was like you’re aching from head to toe. He’s living in Florida after retiring from a long career in the airline industry that took him all over the country for different jobs. Thank you so much for - so today, David is a 66-year-old retiree. So I want to start with the story of a patient named David Swisher. sabrina taverniseĪnd where does that story start? rebecca robbins But recently, my colleague, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and I came across a case that I think raises serious questions about whether this system is always getting the best medications to patients as quickly as possible. And part of the rationale for this system is that the promise of these profits creates incentives for the company to produce new and better drugs to help more people. And in return for spending that money - for taking all those risks - they get to have a monopoly that lasts for years and that allows them to sell their medications for lots of money and keep those prices high.Īnd there are actually laws and regulations that protect that monopoly. So the way the system works is we rely on for-profit companies to spend a lot of money to develop and bring to market new drugs. So we all know that prices are really high for many drugs in the United States. And you’ve been reporting on a case involving a big name American drug company. So Rebecca, you report on the pharmaceutical industry. Today, my colleague, Rebecca Robbins, on a case that suggests they can also create perverse incentives to hold new drugs back. sabrina taverniseįrom “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”įor decades, drug companies have argued that patents are critical to bringing new drugs to market. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email with any questions. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. This transcript was created using speech recognition software. Transcript Why One Drug Company Held Back a Better Drug Drug companies say patents spur innovation.
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