The Brazilian government has told reporters that it will contest a 10% increase in the price of Kaletra when a new heat-stable tablet is introduced into the country shortly.
In 2005 the Brazilian government agreed a discounted price for Kaletra with manufacturer Abbott following threats to begin generic production of the drug in Brazil if a significant reduction could not be achieved. At the time the Brazilian government expected the number of patients needing Kaletra to triple over the following six years, and it projected that the deal will save up to $259 million over the same period.
However, a little-reported clause of the agreement permitted Abbott to charge a higher price for a heat-stable tablet version of Kaletra, if and when that was introduced. Abbott’s Brazilian communications manager Ana Paula Barboza told Rio de Janeiro newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa that the company expected to go ahead with the price stipulated in the 2005 agreement, pointing out that the Brazilian government achieved a substantially lower Kaletra price in that agreement than the one offered to middle-income countries in August this year, when Abbott announced an annual price of $2200 for middle-income countries, excluding Brazil. That price is available to Latin American countries excluding Mexico.