As AIDS treatment programs grow throughout the developing world, drug procurement costs will represent a larger and larger percentage of AIDS budgets. Having an idea of future drug costs would be very helpful for planning. AIDS drug costs, however, have proven hard to predict. How might policymakers better estimate future drug prices?

One way would be to build an "AIDS Drug Futures Market", an online venue in which users can compete in predicting drug prices. Such futures markets have proven useful in predicting other pharmaceutical prices, such as in the market run by NewsFutures.com. (Futures markets have proven effective in predicting many things, such as presidential elections and economic growth -- all described in the excellent book "The Wisdom of Crowds").

The Global Fund is now providing excellent retrospective data on AIDS drug prices. A futures market could help provide prospective estimates, allowing policymakers to maximize resources.