Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - November 15, 2002

But Roche insisted it was doing its part to make desperately needed drugs available for millions of AIDS victims in developing countries and said its critics were ignoring the steps its has taken to ease the plight of sufferers.

In an open letter to Roche Chairman and Chief Executive Franz Humer, humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) complained that the price Roche demands for AIDS drug Viracept was 1.4 times higher in Guatemala than in Switzerland or France.

Even in Cameroon, a poor sub-Saharan country eligible for Roche's lowest price, the drug cost $4,124 per patient per year -- almost double the price charged in Brazil, it said, noting rivals Merck and Abbott had slashed prices more.

"Compared to your competitors' (AIDS drug) price reductions, Roche has done little to make Viracept affordable to patients in need," the doctors group charged.

"Although Roche, along with other companies, announced an intention to decrease prices by up to 90 percent... more than two years ago, your company's best offer for Viracept in LDCs and sub-Saharan Africa was a reduction of only 40-50 percent off the French and Swiss retail prices."

CHECK WEBSITE

William Burns, head of Roche's flagship drug division, rejected the allegations of inaction.

"We have had dramatic price reductions over the last couple of years on our various products... for HIV," he told Reuters, noting Roche had posted its lowest prices on the United Nations AIDS agency Web Site, which he said was available to all least developed nations as defined by the United Nations.

"We don't go in for bilateral discussions with one nation or another. We recognize they have a lot to do on their infrastructure and preparedness to treat the disease, but if they have a program where one of our antiretroviral (drugs) is appropriate, then we have got those special prices out on the web."

He noted Roche was limited to some extent by the royalties it pays on Viracept to Pfizer Inc, from whom it licenses the product outside the United States.

"MSF is ignoring the fact that we have volunteered Viracept powder -- one of the few pediatric preparations in this whole area -- free of profit, and you can't get a much lower price than that," Burns said.

Developed-world drug-makers have often faced pressure to slash prices on key AIDS drugs that are out of reach for millions of poor people. Some 40 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS, 95 percent of them in developing countries.

Drug-makers abandoned a landmark court case last year that aimed to keep South Africa from importing cut-price medicines.

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