"Merck Cuts Price of AIDS Drug"
Financial Times (03/20/97) P. 8; Green, Daniel
The price of the AIDS drug Crixivan will be cut by 9 percent
in the United Kingdom to bring the price down to the level charged
in other European Union countries, the drug’s maker, Merck, has
announced. Parallel importing, in which drugs are purchased in
countries where prices are lower and sold in other countries at
higher prices, is widespread in Europe and is opposed by the
pharmaceutical industry. Merck’s price adjustment "reflects our
continued faith in the single market for pharmaceuticals in Europe
and the likely introduction of a single European currency within a
few years," said Per Wold Olsen, Merck’s president of human health
for Europe. When Crixivan was introduced last year, Merck said it
would be sold at a uniform price across the European Union, which
the company claims to have achieved in "most" European nations.
27
Mar
Relief in the UK
getw…@aol.com "Get Well" writes:
> "Merck Cuts Price of AIDS Drug"
> Financial Times (03/20/97) P. 8; Green, Daniel
> The price of the AIDS drug Crixivan will be cut by 9 percent
> in the United Kingdom to bring the price down to the level charged
> in other European Union countries, the drug’s maker, Merck, has
> announced.
They will have to give it away to reflect its true value as a
medicine, and even then wise prospects will refuse it altogether,
as so many do already.
John
—
Dr Ian Weller of University College, London, said the effects of
protease inhibitors were not known and he would be conservative
about prescribing them.
"You are actually committing people to many, many years of treatment
with combination drugs and you don’t know what the long-term effects
are." Reuters, Sept 10, 1996