Under sustained pressure from AIDS activitists, the drugmaker has frozen the price charged to state-run ADAP programs for Isentress, a novel HIV med that was recently introduced. In a letter to the Fair Pricing Coalition, Merck writes that the launch price will now remain the same through the end of 2010, the POZ blog reports.

The moves comes after the activist group last fall initiated an Internet protest asking the drugmaker to “set a price that offers a reasonable profit without worsening the economic problems faced by patients and payers.” The activist group has been concerned that Isentress pricing - $27 a day wholesale, or about $9,900 a year - would have hurt state-run AIDS Drug Assistance Programs.

In talks with activists last year, Merck indicated it would price Isentress in line with similar meds, which raised red flags. At the time, the coalition claimed “it will not be enough for Merck to set a price ‘no higher’ than popular protease inhibitors,” because these are already “grossly overpriced” at between “$10,000 and $13,000.” Since many AIDS patients must take more than one med to combat the virus, AIDS activitists were upset the cost has been too high.

“This is a tribute to the value of having open, ongoing discussions with drug companies. It does little good to simply complain about these important issues. We expect that all the companies will take steps to help address the burdens experienced by government assistance programs and the costs being passed on to individuals by private insurers. Any company that fails to do so is going to stick out like a sore thumb,” Martin Delaney of the Fair Pricing Coaltion says in a statement.

The cut, by the way, follows similar freezes on the prices of AIDS drugs last month by Gilead Sciences and Boehringer-Ingelheim. Separately, Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova says Merck has agreed to offer discounts of up to 40 percent on its Stocrin and Isentress AIDS drugs.