Big Pharma Cuts Prices

Abbott Laboratories, Roche Holding and more than 20 other pharmaceutical companies have agreed to reduce prices for AIDS drugs by as much as 55 percent in Latin America. Last month Brazil persuaded Abbott to cut the price of its AIDS drug Kaletra after threatening to break the company’s patent and produce the medication itself. In Latin America, about 350,000 of the 1.5 million people with AIDS need antiretroviral drugs and only 73 percent receive treatment, according to Argentina´s Health Ministry.