Thursday, October 13, 2005

Abbott - A close Brazilian!


"Lower your price or we’ll break your patent" is a strategy that the Brazilian government has used before on Big Pharma. They’ve never gone through with the threat, but it’s clearly a real one.

Abbott has apparently decided that it's better to make 63 cents a pill (down from $1.17) in Brazil than to make nothing, and (worse yet) to have Brazilian generic drug makers cranking anti HIV drug Kaletra out for the rest of the world.

And they've got a point there, of course, even after assuming that this deal could set off more price negotiations in other countries!

Insider reckons there is still a profit good in there for Abbott.

It was close to a scalping, but who got the Brazillian?!

http://www.nwherald.com/BusinessSection/306753436517880.php

Hat tip: Corante

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