FDA Clears "Intelence" for treatment of HIV

The potential for these drugs is amazing. The primary purpose of this drug is an additional medication for those who have developed resistance.

According to this article, (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22737295/) "Tens of thousands of patients worldwide have resistance to NNRTIs and could be candidates for Intelence" Using their data that "The drug's wholesale cost will be $5.45 per tablet" and the information that "The approved dosing is two tablets twice per day, or a total of four tablets daily." this works out to $21.8 per day or $7957 dollars a year per person! If there are tens of thousands (so at least 20 thousand) people who are resistant that is $159.14 million dollars a year for this drug alone which they can expect to receive for the rest of the patients life. Considering this over the 20 year patent life of their drug and we determine that this single drug could net over 3.2 billion dollars even if the resistance rate does not increase. Considering every year there are more new infections than the previous year and further considering that according to the article "Close to 40 million people are infected with HIV" the market potential for these drugs is mind boggling.

None the less according to the article "Experts Rethinking Billions Spent on Aids" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22726852/) there is great public controversy over the money being spent on fighting AIDS and there is an increasing push to spend money wisely because "Problems like malnutrition, pneumonia and malaria kill more children in Africa than AIDS.

I would like to ask the simple question, "If one single drug nets 3.2 billion dollars in revenue can't we look at Aids spending (at least is it pertains to research and development) as an "Investment" rather than an "Expense?"