EU low price scheme for developing countries losing sales
Total sales in 2011 were only 3% of 2005 figure
The European Commission has reported a dramatic fall in the number of medicines being sold at low prices to poorer countries under a special European Union (EU) scheme. It says that total sales of these ‘registered tiered priced medicines’ for diseases such as AIDS/HIV and tuberculosis have significantly and steadily decreased over the last six years.
‘The total sales of 2011 represent just 3% of the total sales of 2005,’ the Commission said.
This is mainly because customers in these countries are purchasing anti-retrovirals (ARVs) from other producers and ‘in particular from generic manufacturers, including those licensed by GlaxoSmithKline through its royalty free voluntary licences’.
The Commission added that ViiV Healthcare, established by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer to deliver HIV treatments, has now granted 11 voluntary licences for the manufacture and supply of ARVs. The system was established under EU regulation 953/2003 and successfully ensured that these low priced Europe-made medicines did not re-enter the EU as illicit parallel imports.