Brasília, 11/19/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - After four months of negotiations, the Ministry of Health reports that the US pharmaceutical firm, Merck, Sharp & Dohme, has agreed to reduce the price of its AIDS drug, Efavinenz. The drug is one of the most expensive used to fight AIDS. The reduction will be 25%, which means Brazil will economize R$28 million annually. The ministry distributes Efavinenz free of charge to 37,000 patients as part of the government's AIDS program.

According to Alexandre Grangeiro, who runs the Brazilian AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Disease programs, the agreement with Merck, Sharp and Dohme goes beyond a simple price reduction and includes a possible voluntary licensing scheme which will allow a federally-run lab in Brazil to make the drug.

Under its AIDS program Brazil distributes 15 drugs free of charge. Eight of them are manufactured in Brazil. Most of the program's budget is used to import other drugs needed to fight AIDS. Three imported drugs, including Efavinenz, consume 63% of the program's budget of R$540 million. There are 600,000 HIV positive people in Brazil, some 135,000 of them receive free care from the AIDS program run under the government's unified public health system (SUS).

At the moment Brazil is negotiating with the Abott and Roche laboratories for reductions in the prices of Lopinavir and Nelfinavir, respectively. Grangeiro says the way to resolve the problem if price negotiations fail is to import generic drugs from China or India, which are presently being tested by the Brazilian FDA (Anvisa), or simply break the patent, using compulsory licensing. (AB)