[Ip-health] Chic.SunT: Doctors boycott Abbott over price hike for AIDS drug

[Kate Krauss]

Doctors boycott Abbott over price hike for AIDS drug

February 11, 2004

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Business Reporter
Chicago Sun Times

Anger over Abbott Laboratories' recent hike of more than 400 percent in the
price of its HIV drug Norvir has prompted physicians to launch a boycott
against the North Chicago-based pharmaceutical giant.

HIV doctors meeting at a medical conference in San Francisco on Tuesday
formally announced the grassroots boycott, which includes 200 leading HIV
physicians from around the country, including doctors in Illinois.

The physicians have agreed to:

* Not participate in any new Abbott-sponsored clinical trials or studies.

*Consider other HIV treatment options when medically appropriate, but
continue to prescribe Abbott HIV medications when in the best interest of
patients.

*Extend the boycott to other Abbott products such as antibiotics,
gastrointestinal and cardiovascular drugs and nutrition products including
antibiotics Biaxin, Erythromycin, Prevacid and Ensure among others.

*Resign from all Abbott advisory boards and lecture faculties.

*Ban Abbott representatives, commercial or medical, from their offices.

*Encourage other physicians to join in the boycott.

"A 400 percent increase in the price of an already approved and long-used
drug is unethical," said Dr. Benjamin Young, an HIV specialist at Rose
Medical Center in Denver who is among physicians participating in the
boycott and who called on Abbott to rescind the price increase.

Abbott increased the price of Norvir from $1.71 for a daily pill to $8.57 in
December. The company said it hiked the drug, which has been on the market
since 1996, because its value has increased and to support research and
development to improve HIV treatment.

Norvir, initially part of an early arsenal to treat AIDS as a stand-alone
medication, has been found to be more effective as a booster that makes
other HIV medicines work better. It is a key component in so-called
AIDS-fighting cocktails that include medicines from Abbott competitors.

Abbott representatives said the drug has long been priced below other drugs
in its class and remains so. The daily cost of other commonly used drugs in
the class range between $9.84 to $32, according to information supplied by
Abbott.

But critics have argued the Norvir price increase is designed to steer more
patients to Abbott's next-generation HIV drug Kaletra, which entered the
market in 2000. The hike in Norvir's cost makes some competitors' drug
cocktails that use it more expensive than Kaletra, which costs $18.78 a day.

The AIDS Foundation of Chicago, which has met with the company over the
increase, voiced fears that the Norvir price increase will affect patient
access to current and future therapies that require Norvir and hurt future
pricing negotiations for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, putting treatment
further out of reach for many.

The group and other AIDS activists and physicians also worry that Abbott's
action will negatively influence the pricing patterns of other makers of HIV
and AIDS medicines. It joined others, including the Chicago Department of
Public Health, in asking Abbott to put a moratorium on the price increase.

"We hope they'll reconsider what they've done," said Mark Shaug, executive
director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago."

"This is just a manifestation of corporate greed," said Dr. Daniel S.
Berger, who runs the largest private HIV treatment center in Chicago.

Berger, also clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of
Illinois at Chicago, welcomed the boycott. He said when he has other HIV
treatment options to Abbott products he will recommend them to patients when
it's in their best interest. He said he'll do likewise with other Abbott
products, such as antibiotics.

"I don't know how else to give them feedback," he said.

Abbott doesn't plan to rescind the price increase, said Dr. John Leonard,
vice president of global pharmaceutical development at Abbott. He said that
to do so would undermine the development of better HIV treatments in the
future.

He said the company has taken action to address concerns, which include
permanently freezing the cost of the drug to AIDS Drug Assistance programs
and making Norvir available for free to patients without insurance
regardless of income.

"No patient should go without," he said.

Regarding the boycott, he said he met with some of the grassroots leaders to
hear their concerns Tuesday.

"There's a very small group of doctors who are pursuing this action," he
contended, noting they represent fewer than 2 percent of physicians who
treat AIDS patients.

ABOUT NORVIR

*Norvir is one of a group of drugs knows as protease inhibitors that are
used to treat HIV.
*The drug helps decrease the amount of HIV in a patient's blood, as well as
increase the amount of helpful T-cells.
*Abbott in December raised the price of Norvir from $1.71 for a daily pill
to $8.57.
*Typical dosage is two capsules daily, and is usually taken with other
medicines as a drug 'cocktail.'