(Reuters) - Drugmakers Boehringer-Ingelheim and Eli Lilly have called off plans to market their Type 2 diabetes drug linagliptin in Germany because new legislation in the country could mean that pill's price could end up being too low.
"We will seek constructive talks with all affected parties as part of our diabetes alliance," Boehringer Ingelheim's German head Engelbert Guenster said in a joint statement on Friday.
"But we can only provide the new anti-diabetes drug in Germany when there is transparency on the outcome of the (price-setting) process, if at all," he said.
Drug companies in Germany, the world's third-biggest drug market by sales, used to be allowed to set prices for new products themselves, but new legislation that came into effect at the start of this year changed that.
The new rules allow a government agency to set a fixed price for new drugs unless it believes that they offer benefits beyond those of corresponding established treatments.
Boehringer and Eli Lilly said the price set for linagliptin may end up being too low.
Boehringer and Eli Lilly last week won approval from European regulators to market linagliptin, which is branded as Trajenta in Europe and known as Tradjenta in the United States.
Lilly in January agreed to initially pay 300 million euros ($432.3 million), plus potentially up to 625 million euros, depending on development progress for the right to co-develop two of Boehringer's experimental diabetes pills, linagliptin and BI10773.
That was part of Lilly's five-drug alliance with the unlisted German peer as the U.S drugmaker tries to revive its diabetes business after setbacks and help it manoeuvre past generic competition.
About 6.8 million people in Germany have type 2 diabetes, according to Boehringer. (Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Boehringer, Lilly won't sell diabetes pill in Germany | Reuters
via reuters.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment