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Demand for Microbicides
What do we know about the demand for microbicides?
Since microbicides are essentially a new class of products, it is difficult to estimate market parameters based on past sales of analogous products. Instead of asking consumers to compare two different items and identify their preference; researchers have to discern first whether potential microbicide users perceive themselves at risk of HIV or STIs, and then ask them to imagine using a product that does not yet exist! These obstacles have made it difficult to confront some of the most pervasive myths about the commercial potential of microbicides. Nevertheless, two studies have attempted to dispute these myths and map the potential microbicides market.
MYTH: only poor women in developing countries would use microbicides.
While women in developing countries are in desperate need of a prevention product that they control, they are by no means the only ones. In 1999, the Alan Guttmacher Institute conducted a phone survey of 1,000 sexually active women aged 18-44 in the United States. They estimated that there are 21.3 million U.S. women interested in a microbicidal product1. An eleven-country study conducted by the European Union found that 25% of urban French women interviewed thought a microbicide would be "very useful2."
MYTH: the people who most need microbicides would not be able to afford them.
While ensuring the affordability of microbicides to every person at risk is a key priority, the reality is that the definition of "affordable" varies widely among countries, and among groups of people within countries. Many Indian women are extremely poor and could only use HIV prevention methods that are provided free of charge. The EU study showed that even in resource-poor countries, women at risk are willing to pay up to five times the local price of a condom for a prevention method they controlled. Sixty-eight percent of women interviewed in Kenya were willing to pay twice as much for a microbicide as for a condom; this proportion was 58% in Brazil and 13% in France.3 A study conducted with middle and lower-class women in Brazil showed almost half were willing to pay up to $5.00 per application, 15% up to $3.00, and 30%, $1.00.4
