HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

According to a staff member, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee may hold hearings to determine whether Abbott Laboratories artificially inflated the price of its AIDS drug Norvir in 2003.

In December 2003, Abbott hiked Norvir's price by 500 percent, making the cost of a year's worth of the treatment about $8,000. The company said the price rise was intended to fund its continuing research in HIV and other areas. Lawmakers and AIDS advocates said Abbott's pricing was unreasonable, given that Norvir was developed with US government funds. Six Republican House members raised the matter in an April 2004 letter to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), then chairperson of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Barton did not hold hearings on the issue.

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oting that federal funds led to the development of Norvir, the advocacy group Essential Inventions in 2004 called on the government to invoke its "march-in" rights and grant manufacturing licenses to other companies. The National Institutes of Health rejected the request, saying "march-in" was not warranted and the matter was one for the Federal Trade Commission. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate NIH's decision. Waxman now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

In 2005, the Service Employees International Union Health and Welfare Fund filed a federal suit alleging Abbott broke antitrust laws by raising Norvir's price so two drugs taken with it, Bristol-Myers Squibb's Reyataz and GlaxoSmithKline's Lexiva, would become more costly. That case is slated for next year.

from The Hill (Washington)