The latest showdown over high drug costs features pharmaceutical giant Novartis facing off against a large Latin American country.
Trouble started four years ago, when Colombia denied Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis a patent for cancer drug Gleevec. The company took Colombia to court and won a patent for one of two forms of the drug. The second version, slightly different than Novartis', is available as a generic and sold by a handful of companies including Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories.
Colombia did not have patents on the drug from 2003 to 2012, allowing generic producers to sell the drug at prices 192 percent cheaper than those of Novartis. However, now the company's patent has reduced competition, forcing the country to pay Novartis' high prices.
Colombian Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria has been fighting with Novartis to lower the price of Gleevec. Initially, he intended to declare a compulsory license, which would override Novartis' patent and permit other companies to make cheaper generic versions of the company's drug. Now, Mr. Gaviria calls for a declaration of public interest that would allow health regulators to examine the case and set a new, lower price for Gleevec that Novaris would be legally obliged to follow.
Novartis has not received official confirmation regarding the declaration from Colombia. So far, the company refuses to lower the drug's cost.
Novartis' annual cost of Gleevec is roughly $15,000 for a country where the nation's per capita gross national income is about $8,000. The Colombian Medical Federation noted that sales of generic Gleevec have declined in the nation, possibly due to decreased availability of the drug. It's not clear how many patients are not receiving treatment because of the pricing dispute.
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