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From: tidswell@endor.harvard.edu (Ian Tidswell)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.motss
Subject: Re: Why AZT is so expensive
Message-ID: <2670@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 21 Sep 89 03:31:31 GMT
References: <11815@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <929@paperboy.OSF.ORG> <4620@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> <11864@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
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Reply-To: tidswell@endor.UUCP (Ian Tidswell)
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA
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From 0 to 2 postings in 1/2 hour.  Whatever next?

I was meaning to post this a couple of days ago when the issue was
really hot, but it took me until now to give up trying to send stuff 
from the system I use most of the time, and resort to the machine where 
the administrators know what they are doing.  Still, it seems like 
the discussion might benifit from the information.

Heres some info I remember about Burroughs-Wellcome from reading an 
article in The Guardian (a national daily in the UK) a week or so ago.
My already failing mind may have some of the details wrong.

75% of B-W stock is owned by the B-W Foundation, a UK based NON-PROFIT 
organization dedicated to medical research and education.  The remaining
25% of stock is traded on the London Stock Exchange.  The article I read 
was in the business section, and seemed to suggest good times ahead for
B-W and its stockholders (not too surprising) and the B-W might sell 
up to another 15% of stock to cash in on its high share price and improve 
the financial security of the Foundation.  They did not spend any time 
saying what exactly the Foundation does.

This seems to change the equation of the discussion somewhat.  What 
the B-W Foundation is doing with the money raised from AZT sales, I 
don't know, but if it ALL goes toward AIDS research and education, 
then maybe they are not the slimes that has been suggested here.  Anyway, 
they just reduced the price 20%.

---
Ian Tidswell (ian@xray.harvard.edu)