Stavudine and Yale

The drug stavudine (aka d4T, or Zerit), a nucleotide analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor, was found to be effective against HIV by researchers at Yale University. Exclusively licensed to and clinically developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), it was a critical component of triple therapy against HIV, becoming the most frequently prescribed anti-retroviral in the world in 1998.

However, BMS's selling price was prohibitively high for most poor countries, as well as for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who wanted to open sub-Saharan Africa's first HIV treatment clinic, in South Africa.

In 2001, public pressure from students, researchers, and MSF led Yale and BMS to allow South Africa’s leading generic manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, to produce generic stavudine. The price dropped 30-fold.