Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9856
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Goldstein J.
Abbott Blinks, Big Pharma Cringes
The Wall Street Journal Health Blog 2007 Apr 23
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/04/23/abbott-blinks-big-pharma-cringes/?mod=yahoo_hs
Full text:
In a move that shows the power developing countries and public opinion can wield in the global battle over the drug prices, Abbott is backing down in its clash with Thailand over the price of a popular AIDS drug.
Earlier this year, the Thai government said it would allow sales of generic versions of Abbott’s patented AIDS medicine Kaletra (sold as Aluvia in some countries) in order to make the drug affordable for patients there. Abbott responded aggressively, refusing to sell several of its new drugs in Thailand. But now, Abbott CEO Miles White (pictured at left) is offering to slash the price of Kaletra in Thailand if the Thais will agree not to allow the sale of generics, the WSJ’s Nicholas Zamiska and James Hookway report today. An Abbott spokeswoman told the WSJ the Thai government has expressed interest in the offer, but a deal has yet to be worked out.
In recent years, the AIDS epidemic has thrust to the forefront the tension between getting life-saving medicines to poor people who need them, and developing profitable new markets that can fund pharma’s struggling research enterprise. Earlier this year, in a speech meant to highlight his company’s commitment to providing medicines for the world’s poor, Sanofi-Aventis chief Jean-Francois Dehecq wound up calling for tighter international controls on intellectual property. Abbott’s new offer suggests that European and American pharma giants hoping to find new growth markets in the developing world could face an uphill battle, Zamiska and Hookway write.
In a related standoff this year, Indonesia refused to send samples of bird flu to the World Health Organization unless the developed world agreed to share the fruits of the research on the virus with Indonesia. The country relented when the international community agreed to improve the supply of vaccines for the developing world in case of a bird flu pandemic.
