Boehringer Ingelheim, the privately-controlled German drugmaker, is to slash the price of its Viramune drug in the developing world and waive all barriers to generic manufacturers producing low-cost copies.

Alessandro Banchi, chairman of the company’s managing board, unveiled measures to boost low-cost access. “We want to solve the problem (of access) once and for all,” he tells The Financial Times.

Boehringer Ingelheim will reduce the price of the drug by 50 per cent to 60 cents a day per patient in 78 low-income countries, and by up to 90 per cent to $1.20 in 67 middle-income countries. In wealthy nations it sells for $10 to 14 a day.

Separately, the company will waive 5 per cent royalty payments, reporting requirements and other existing obligations for generic producers approved by the World Health Organisation to make the drug using voluntary licences in favour of a “non assert” policy.

The action will put fresh pressure on other drugmakers to cut medicine prices in poorer countries for essential medicines, at a time when Brazil and Thailand recently announced compulsory licences to override rival companies’ patents in spite of big pharma objections.

The move follows a disappointing take up by low-cost generics producers of Boehringer Ingelheim’s previous offer to issue voluntary licences, as it attempts to stimulate others to produce its drug at the lowest possible cost.

In a blow to rivals’ claims that deeper discounts are not possible without removing necessary incentives to innovation, Banchi adds: “Preferential pricing is the only way how we can meet both conflicting needs in the fight against AIDS. We can refinance our high research and development costs for innovative, new treatments by the established price system in industrialised countries and can offer affordable medicines to patients in poor countries who otherwise cannot afford antiretroviral medication.”

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