Three months ago, the drugmaker angered New Zealand’s Pharmac, the government’s drug-buying agency, by raising the price of its Betaloc heart drug, causing the agency to plan surcharges for some 200,000 patients. The move prompted Pharmac medical director Peter Moodie to accuse AstraZeneca of “gambling with patient lives,” and announced plans to subsidize the cost of a lower generic.

In response, AstraZeneca New Zealand general manager Lance Gravatt said he was “flabbergasted” by the remark and promptly announced plans to cut supplies of the injectable version used by hospitals, citing the government’s unfair promotion of a generic. Supplies, meanwhile, were dwindling.

He explained that Pharmac was offered a competitive proposal on a package of heart meds when its three-year contract to supply Betaloc expired a few months ago, but that Pharmac was a tough negotiator. Talk broke down and AstraZeneca can’t continue to supply small volumes of Betaloc injections without a long-term contract to supply the larger and more lucrative tablet market.

“We’re also tough negotiators,” he boasted.

So just how tough is Gravatt and his team? Not so. Pharmac says another drugmaker, Novartis, has pulled out all the stops to supply its own heart med and, New Zealand television reports, Pharmac says AstraZeneca has now also agreed to continue supplying the injection. Maybe the bad publicity was an issue. New Zealand media wrote the ‘Drug Standoff Could Cost Lives.’ Not the sort of headline to bolster the contention that pharma is all about saving lives.