Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday December 3, 2001
Tamora Vidaillet

Squibb is drawing up formal documents to lower the price of its two HIV drugs sold in China--Videx and Zerit--which can be combined with the drugs of other companies to make up a cocktail of HIV drugs used extensively in the West.

Price cuts would offer limited help to China's victims of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, who largely rely on traditional Chinese medicine due to the high cost of the Western anti-HIV cocktail, say local medical experts.

In response to protests, Western pharmaceutical companies have dropped their prices in other parts of the world, especially Africa.

A cocktail of Western HIV drugs generally costs a Chinese person infected with HIV between $9,000 and $15,000 a year, depending on the combination of drugs used--a sum far beyond the means of most ordinary Chinese.

"Right now we are preparing our document for the voluntary drop of our price," Bristol-Myers Squibb China spokeswoman Che Fei told Reuters.

"The percentage drop is rather significant. I cannot give you immediately the percentage as it is in the application process," she said, but added that it would be greater than 20% for both drugs.

Industry sources said GlaxoSmithKline has been talking to the Chinese government about lowering the price of its drugs, though there are still a few outstanding issues to be resolved.

"They are ready, but there are many things that still need to be sorted out," one source said on condition of anonymity.

Merck Sharp & Dohme (China) Ltd, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co , said on Friday it would slash prices of two of its HIV drugs sold in China by one third this month, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are the only foreign companies allowed to sell their AIDS drugs in China, Xinhua said.

The move by Merck--which came on the eve of World AIDS Day on December 1--followed efforts by the government to reduce the price of Western HIV drugs on offer in China, where HIV cases are rising by up to 30% a year, sources said.

LIMITED HELP

Despite the prospect of lower costs, many HIV-positive Chinese will still have to make do with traditional treatments, which are not as comprehensive, medical experts said.

"This will, of course, be a great help to sufferers, although the price is still high," said Zhang Ke, a doctor in charge of clinical AIDS treatment at the Beijing You'an hospital.

The move would probably allow the number of people using the drugs to rise between 10% and 20%, he said.

There are thought to be very few patients using Western HIV medicine in China, but there were no figures immediately available.

Squibb's Che said Western drugs are likely to elude many, partly because Chinese do not receive government aid to pay for such treatment.

Beijing stepped up its fight against AIDS this year, making a rare admission of the scale of the country's HIV/AIDS threat in August by announcing that reported HIV infections had surged 67.4% to 3,541 in the first half of 2001.

China puts the number of confirmed HIV/AIDS cases at 28,133, but some experts say the real figure could be well above 600,000.

The UN says China could have 10 million people with HIV/AIDS by 2010 unless it acts decisively.

China has set goals to limit the growth of HIV infections to within 10% by 2005 and to ensure the total number of HIV infections does not exceed 1.5 million by 2010--a figure many think will be hard to achieve.
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