Former President Bill Clinton has announced agreements with drug companies to lower the price of so-called “second-line” AIDS drugs.

The Clinton Foundation has negotiated agreements with generic drug makers Cipla and Matrix that, according to Bill Clinton, will allow an average saving of 25% in low-income countries and 50% in middle-income countries.

Second-line AIDS drugs are necessary for patients that develop resistance to first-line drugs. They cost ten times as much as firs-line treatments, the former president said. With the new deals, these drugs will cost a fraction of the original price. Nearly half a million patients will require these drugs by 2010.

Clinton stated: “This is very important to me personally. No company will live or die because of high price premiums for AIDS drugs in middle-income countries, but patients may.”

A once-a-day AIDS pill will soon be available for less than $1 a day.

“Seven million people in the developing world are in need of treatment for HIV/AIDS,” Clinton said during a news conference at his Harlem office Tuesday. “We are trying to meet that need with the best medicine available today, and at prices that low and middle-income countries can afford.”

The former president explained that due to these new agreements, a patient’s yearly treatment would cost $339. This figure would be 45 percent lower than the current situation in low-income countries and 67 percent less than the price available to many middle-income countries.

The Clinton Foundation began its HIV/AIDS Initiative in 2002. It has worked with countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, to set up AIDS treatment and prevention programs. Approximately 750,000 people are receiving AIDS drugs purchased through the Clinton Foundation.

The foundation is financed by UNITAID, an organization formed by France and 19 other nations. UNITAID will provide the foundation with more than $100 million to buy second-line medicines for 27 countries through 2008.