Financial Times (04/28/94) P. 7
Wellcome slashed the cost of its AIDS drug AZT by 56 percent
in Portugal, where a small pharmaceutical firm marketed a
cheaper version of zidovudine in a challenge to Wellcome's
worldwide patents. The Portuguese company, Farma APS, beat
Wellcome out for a contract to supply the drug to Sao Joao
Hospital in Oporto, said the company's director-general,
Augusto Paiva dos Santos. Farma sells a Canadian-manufactured
version of the drug, called Apo-Zidovudine, at 33 percent
below Wellcome's previous price. Paiva dos Santos said that
Wellcome had cut the price of Retrovir, its version of
zidovudine, by 50 percent and 56 percent, respectively, in
bids for two other Portuguese hospital contracts that have yet
to be awarded. "The fact that Wellcome has lowered its prices
to less than half of what it is charging in the rest of Europe
shows it must be making a fabulous profit on AZT," Paiva dos
Santos commented. But he said his company's prices were still
lower than those tendered by the British rival. He also said
Farma APS may register Apo-Zidovudine for sale in other
European Union countries, as well as in Eastern Europe.