[Pharm-policy] Michael Waldholtz in WSJ: Pfizer Weighs Requests to Cut Price of Drug

[James Love]

Forwarded to this list as a fair use. Jamie



Pfizer Weighs Requests to Cut Price of Drug 
By Michael Waldholz
     
03/24/2000
The Wall Street Journal
     
NEW YORK -- Pfizer Inc., under growing pressure from AIDS advocacy groups, 
said it is considering demands to lower the price of its powerful antifungal 
drug, Diflucan, for patients in the developing world.
     
The advocacy groups, including the international organization, Doctors 
Without Borders , have been urging the drug maker to either reduce 
Diflucan's price or allow poor nations, such as those in Africa, to sanction 
the sale of inexpensive generic versions of the medicine. The drug, which 
generated about $1 billion in world-wide revenue for Pfizer last year, is 
effective in fighting lethal fungal infections common among people in poorer 
nations who are infected by HIV, the AIDS virus. Priced at about $17 for a 
daily dose in South Africa, the drug is beyond the reach of most AIDS 
patients in developing nations.
     
In the most dramatic action yet, four AIDS activists late Wednesday slipped 
past security guards at Pfizer's midtown headquarters here and made their 
way to the 23rd-floor office of William Steere, the company's chairman and 
chief executive officer. According to Eric Sawyer, a founding member of the 
activist group, ACT-UP New York, Mr. Sawyer and three others refused to 
leave the area directly outside Mr. Steere's office until they were given a 
meeting with Pfizer officials about Diflucan.
     
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Sawyer said he didn't talk to Mr. Steere, who 
shut his door when the activists tried to enter his office. Instead, Mr. 
Sawyer's group met for a half-hour with James
Brigates, the world-wide product manager for Diflucan, along with another 
Pfizer official involved in African issues.
     
A Pfizer spokesman said the company couldn't comment on security issues, but 
confirmed that Mr. Sawyer and his group did meet with Mr. Brigates at 
Pfizer's headquarters. Brian McGlynn, the spokesman, said Mr. Brigates told 
the group that Pfizer was struggling with the issue and would give the 
activists a response to their demands by April 3. Mr. McGlynn said Pfizer 
has been in contact with the Treatment Action Campaign, a coalition of South 
African AIDS activists, who have been pressing the Diflucan pricing issue 
for several weeks.
     
Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders said it delivered a letter to 
Pfizer officers in 18 countries asking the company to reduce Diflucan's 
price in South Africa and elsewhere. "In South Africa, where one company 
holds exclusive marketing rights, the cost of [the drug] is nearly 15 times 
higher than in Thailand where the drug is not patent protected," the group 
said in their March 13 press release.
     
Diflucan, also known by its generic name of fluconazole, is effective 
against cryptococcal meningitis, a common systemic fungal infection that can 
be deadly to people whose immune systems have been crippled by HIV. The 
fungal infection can kill within a month or so, but daily Diflucan 
treatments can keep the fungal infection at bay.
     
The drug is available for about $1.20 a day in Thailand, where Pfizer's 
patent isn't being enforced and the drug is made by generic drug 
manufacturers. It is, however, illegal right now for any generic makers to 
sell the drug elsewhere.
     
The activist effort is part of a broad campaign by activists and public 
health groups to get large drug makers to reduce the prices of AIDS drugs or 
allow for the marketing of generic versions of the medicines in poorer 
nations. The campaign is expected to spread in coming weeks as activists 
gear up for the World Conference on AIDS, which will be meeting in July in 
Durban, South Africa.