E-DRUG: Colombia beats Abbott: Kaletra prices to drop 2/3 (2)
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Friends,
As we reported last week, Colombia's National Medicines Pricing
Commission(CNPMD) recently affirmed its decision to regulate the price of
Abbott Laboratories' HIV medicine Kaletra (lopinavir + ritonavir),
rejecting Abbott's appeal.
Abbott's high prices came under scrutiny in 2008 when Colombian civil
society launched a compulsory license campaign, leading eventually to the
Pricing Commission's decision to fix Kaletra's price at about two-thirds
off the drug giant's rate in the spring of 2009.
Nevertheless, Abbott continued to charge its higher monopoly prices, in
apparent violation of the government's price order. The Pricing
Commission announced an investigation, while civil society filed a lawsuit
to obtain a compulsory license authorizing generic competition with
Kaletra.
Today, Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper reports Abbott has finally agreed to
sell Kaletra at CNPMD's price. The change will save Colombia's HIV
programs about US$12 million this year, just as Colombia seeks cost-saving
solutions to a recently-declared Social Emergency to avert the grave
crisis affecting the viability of the General System of Social Security in
Health.
Thanks are due to the hard-working advocates at La Mesa de Organizaciones
con Trabajo en VIH/SIDA, IFARMA, RECOLVIH, G&M de Colombia Abogados,
Mision Salud and Comunicacion Positiva, among others. Congrats on a
well-deserved victory.
Generic prices for lopinavir + ritonavir are still much lower than
Abbott's, and competition is the best means to keep prices falling over
time. Abbott says it won't abandon its legal challenges to the price
order. But we can count on Colombia's civil society to keep the pressure
on.
El Tiempo's article is available here:
http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/bogota/ARTICULO-WEB-PLANTILLA_NOTA_INTERIOR-7227993.html
More information on the Colombia Kaletra case is available here in English
(scroll down):
http://www.essentialaction.org/access/index.php?/categories/8-Country%20Disputes%20and%20Other%20Issues
Archives available here in Spanish:
http://www.mirada-latina.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=23&Itemid=128
Peter Maybarduk
Public Citizen
Access to Medicines Project (formerly Essential Action)
+1 202 390 5375