E-DRUG: More on Roche vs MSF on nelfinavir
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At a press conference in Bern on Friday, MSF exposed Roche's failure to
offer significant discounts on their ARV Viracept(R) (nelfinavir) in
developing countries. Asked by Reuters about their prices, Roche's
spokesman "noted that Roche was limited to some extent by the royalties it
pays on Viracept(R) to Pfizer Inc, from whom it licenses the product
outside the United States." This is simply not true: on 4th November, in
response to a letter bringing up the issue of Roche's licensing agreement,
Pfizer wrote to MSF: "I have verified from Pfizer Senior Management that
the royalty licensing agreement is based on a percentage of sales, and that
Roche has the flexibility to price Viracept (R) (nelfinavir mesylate) as
they determine on a country by country basis. Our royalty would be reduced
proportionately with any price reductions, and should Roche want to donate
Viracept (R) (nelfinavir mesylate), there would be no royalty due Pfizer."
The letter was copied to Mr Franz Humer, CEO of Roche.
A further comment from Roche in the Reuters article reads "MSF is ignoring
the fact that we have volunteered Viracept powder -- one of the few
pediatric preparations in this whole area -- free of profit, and you can't
get a much lower price than that." The reason our press release did not
mention the powder is that there is very little demand for this product.
WHO's Antiretroviral Therapy in Resource-Limited Settings states that
"Nelfinavir powder is difficult to use and crushed tablets are preferable."
In the US and Europe, the powder amounts to less than 0.2% of sales of
Viracept(R).
Yesterday at the "Sixth International Drug Therapy In HIV Infection
Congress" in Glasgow, a Roche representative said that it was considering
lowering the price of nelfinavir -- although no timeframe or level of
reduction was mentioned. MSF circulated a document asking doctors attending
the conference to demand that Roche revise their pricing policy and to
refuse to see Roche sales representatives until this has been done (see
extract below).
Related documents available on http://www.accessmed-msf.org