From Reuters:
Brazil’s president is to decide whether his country will honor Merck & Co’s AIDS drug patent, after the health ministry rejected the company’s price-cut. “We consider the offer insufficient and we told the manufacturer,” Brazil’s health minister, Jose Temporao, told Reuters on Thursday. “The decision (on whether to break the patent) is now being analyzed by the president.”
The government said last week it was considering importing generic versions of the drug, Efavirenz, for Brazil’s lauded AIDS treatment program if it decides not to honor the patent. It has not mentioned any plans to make the drug locally. Brazil has threatened to break patents before, but has hammered out deals in the end. Under World Trade Organization rules, a country can sidestep patents by issuing a “compulsory license,” which allows production and imports of generic drugs for public health and national emergencies. Brazil declared the drug “in the public interest” and too expensive to buy.
Brazil wanted Merck to cut the price of Efavirenz to $0.65 per pill — the same price paid by Thailand — from $1.57 per pill paid by Brazil, the ministry said. A source close to the negotiations said the New Jersey-based drugmaker has since come back with an offer of $1.10 a patient per day, but Brazil rebuffed that bid. The source said the talks were at an impasse.
Can you imagine the U.S. government standing up to drug companies in this way? Unfortunately, it would never happen.
[...] Drugs are for rich people; the poor get the scraps Innovation by the drug industry has always taken a back seat to profits. Recently, Brazil has threatened to break Merck’s patent on a much-needed AIDS drug if negotiations for a lower price render no results. [...]