Por: Lisa Richwine

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A nonprofit company will ask the U.S. government Thursday to grant licenses for production of cheaper, generic versions of an AIDS drug and a blockbuster glaucoma medicine that are still protected by patents.

Washington-based Essential Inventions Inc. said the drugs, Abbott Laboratories Inc.’s AIDS medicine Norvir and Pfizer Inc.’s glaucoma treatment Xalatan, were developed with support from taxpayer funds and now are being sold at unreasonable prices.

The nonprofit firm, founded this month by consumer activist James Love, will file complaints to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson alleging "abusive prices of government-funded medicines," according to a statement posted on the Web site of the Consumer Project on Technology, headed by Love.

Essential Inventions says the health secretary, under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, can provide licenses to other producers of patented medicines when needed for public health, or because the patent holder has failed to make the product available on reasonable terms.

Norvir, known generically as ritonavir, is a protease inhibitor used to fight the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

Last December, Abbott raised Norvir’s price five-fold to nearly $8,000 a year for a 200-milligram "booster" dose used to make other AIDS drugs more effective, Essential Inventions said.

Xalatan is the world’s best-selling treatment for glaucoma, which can cause blindness. Sales in 2003 topped $1 billion.

The drug’s U.S. price generally is between two and five times higher than prices in Canada and Europe, Essential Inventions said. One U.S. pharmacy sells Xalatan for $60 for a four-to-six-week supply.

Spokespeople for Pfizer and Abbott were not immediately available for comment.

Development of both drugs was supported in part by grants from the federal National Institutes of Health.

A spokesman for Thompson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nonprofit firm said it has suppliers ready to manufacture generic versions of Norvir and Xalatan, known generically as latanoprost, at "highly reduced" prices to U.S. consumers.

The company’s request will ask the health secretary to require any generic producers to contribute to funds for new medicine development, a move aimed at relieving concerns that generic competition would drain the research budgets of brand-name drug makers.

Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service 

Fonte: http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/01/28/rtr1232471.html
Acessado em: 28/11/2006