is quoted as charging consistently higher prices than the UK - their price for 3TC tops £2,400.
As for Italy, a year's supply of 3TC can cost a mere £193! But
that's because Italy has a policy of charging lower prices for some new
drugs for a period, then raising prices later.
The EATG prices were revised last October. However taking into account
currency fluctuations, the general trend seems clear. The UK is consistently
the second priciest major European country after Germany, and this also
applies to other HIV drugs made by other drug companies .
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For instance, for nevirapine (marketed by Boehringer Ingelheim as Viramune)
the UK pays approximately £2,400 for a year's supply at full price
to hospital clinics. The Germans can expect to pay £3,270, the French
£1,840 and the Italians a mere £225.
For Roche's protease inhibitor nelfinavir (brand name Viracept), the prices
quoted by EATG average around £4,700 a year for Germany, £3,900
for the UK, under £3,100 for France and £370 for Italy.
With the exception of Germany, at face value it does look as if this is
another case of 'Rip-off Britain'. We pay more for our cars and CDs and
also, it seems, for drugs.
The St Mary's pharmacist explained the ways they get round this differential
pricing. For example, saving money by purchasing 3TC in France, as with
the bottle on the desk. This is basically 'parallel importing', the subject
of an aborted legal action by 42 drug companies when the South African
government asserted its right to do the same thing.
A lower parallel import price can be used as a bargaining chip by hospitals
