Business

The controversy over the high price of AIDS drugs is not limited to AZT, the antiviral medication that can cost patients as much as $550 a month. AIDS activists are assailing the high price of pentamidine, a medication that helps prevent a deadly form of pneumonia among people infected with the AIDS virus. The drug's manufacturer, Lyphomed of Rosemont, Ill., holds the exclusive license for pentamidine (brand name: NebuPent) in the U.S., where the drug retails for $110 to $200 for a month's supply.

Lyphomed defends its pentamidine price by citing high research-and- developmen t costs. The firm announced last June that it would make the drug available free of charge to patients who have no insurance, but the + company is still working out details of the program. Last month the People with AIDS Health Group, based in New York City, began importing small quantities of pentamidine from Britain. Reason: a month's supply of the European version, which is made by the French firm Rhone-Poulenc, costs just $26.