MALARIA: Clinton Foundation

Malaria is the single greatest killer of African children, claiming the lives of roughly 1 million young children every year and hindering the development of many who survive. Despite a surge in funding and attention from the global community in recent years, the majority of African families are not benefitting from the tools necessary to stop malaria, such as bed nets and effective medicines, because of a lack of access or efficient use. Building on CHAI's approach in successfully changing the marketplace for HIV/AIDS medicines, we expanded our efforts in 2007 to increase access to effective malaria treatment.
CHAI's Approach
Unlike some diseases, malaria can be cured quickly and fully with over-the-counter medicine and without a doctor's visit. Over the last 20 years, however, the malaria parasite has grown resistant to many of the leading treatments sold at local drug shops. Effective alternatives, known as artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), are now available as an alternative to the ineffective medicine, but remain too expensive for many patients to afford, costing $10 - for one treatment of medicine that can treat the disease - in communities where most people make less than $2 per day.
Malaria experts theorized that subsidizing the cost of malaria medications to private wholesalers would have a dramatic effect on the price of ACTs. In 2007, CHAI decided to pilot this theory by buying ACTs from the manufacturer and selling them at a 95 percent reduced price. Within the first six months of the pilot, the price decreased to 50 cents, and ACT uptake increased by 45 percent. The results of this pilot now are helping to guide the design of a potential global subsidy for ACTs, known as the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria (AMFm).
Additionally, CHAI has worked with six suppliers to make ACTs more affordable in developing countries around the world. On July 17, 2008, President Clinton announced an agreement with these suppliers that lowered the price of one leading malaria medicine by 30 percent, and reduced the price volatility of artmesinin, a key raw ingredient used to make ACTs, by 70 percent. Over the past six years alone, the price of this key raw material has ranged from $150 to $1,100, a 700 percent swing in pricing. This agreement enables affordable access to the highest quality medicines for hundreds of thousands of people across the more than 70 countries in CHAI's Procurement Consortium.
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/what-we-do/clinton-health-access-initiative/our-approach