The Barbara Mc Clintock Project to Cure AIDS: Act Up’s Detailed Plan for an All Out Research Effort to Find a Cure for AIDS

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4b. The Project shall have extraordinary powers to exercise the right of eminent domain
to:
* obtain from public and private organizations - with just compensation - samples
of all potential curatives and aHll data regarding their development (including safety
and efficacy data) as well as other information, materials or products deemed crucial
to the Project.
* implement clinical testing for potential curatives owned by private companies,
whether under development or not, unless said companies adhere to an approved
time frame and are forthcoming with their data as such work proceeds.
* use existing pharmaceutical company facilities (with just compensation) for the
production of promising curatives to be utilized in McClintock research and, if
effective, to produce such curatives in sufficient amounts to be disseminated to all
people needing them.
Research into potential curatives and treatments for AIDS has been hampered on numerous
occasions by the economics of drug development. While the conflicts of interest inherent at the
NIH may result in faster development of treatments sponsored by major pharmaceutical
companies, the self-concern of these same companies can stall or even prevent a drug's
development. Examples include Abbott's HIVIG, (the trial of which was delayed by a year
while the company sold the drug to avoid liability problems) and Hoffman LaRoche's tat
inhibitor, the development of which was stopped for a year while Roche sought a buyer for the
compound.
The McClintock Project must be able to research all potential curatives, unencumbered by the
secrecy produced by marketplace competitiveness. Therefore, the Project will forge a new
alliance with the pharmaceutical industry; an alliance unlike that which currently exists at the
NIH. Rather than allowing it staff to profit from consulting agreements with drug companies,
the McClintock Project will objectively examine patented compounds currently owned by the
various pharmaceuticals, and gauge the company's development plan. In order to assess the
current state of the numerous drugs being developed or sitting "on the shelf", the Project will
require access to samples of these drugs, as well as data, published or not, relating to them.
Such data will be kept in strict confidence within the Project, although researchers associated
with the Project will have access to such information as deemed necessary.
If a drug company is found to be impeding or halting the development of a promising
compound, the Project will first attempt to work with the company to develop the needed
timetable for research and trials. A company lacking the resources to develop a compound will
have the option of selling the compound to the Project for a just compensation, or allowing
portions of its development to be undertaken by the Project, thereby reducing the company's
later profits from the marketing of the drug.
If, however, a company refuses to cooperate with the Project by not releasing needed data, or
by withholding samples of requested compounds, the McClintock Project will be empowered by