Advertise With UsAdvertise on our extensive network of industry websites and newsletters.
Get the PBR newsletterSign up to our free email to get all the latest PBR
news.The Brazilian government has negotiated a 30% price cut for Abbott's HIV drug Kaletra, saving the country $10 million a year.
Subscribe to our email newsletter
The new agreement sets the price for the protease inhibitor at $1,000 per patient per year. Last month, Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that the country would break the patent on another HIV drug, Merck’s Sustiva, after price negotiations with the company broke down. Brazil provides free drugs to all AIDS patients in the country, spending $495 million on anti-retroviral drugs in 2005.
The new agreement follows Abbott’s decision to lower its prices for HIV drugs in low and low-middle income countries. The company maintains its no-profit price of $500 per patient per year for the drug in all African and least developed countries, where approximately seven out of every ten people with HIV live.
Last year, Thailand issued a compulsory license for Kaletra, overriding the patent and allowing the government to import generics. Abbott reacted by blacklisting the country from new drugs the company is developing.