Aetna Sues Abbott Over 400 Percent Rise in AIDS Drug Price

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Aetna Inc. has sued pharmaceutical maker Abbott Laboratories Inc., accusing it of seeking a monopoly on AIDS drugs by raising the price of its popular drug Norvir by 400 percent.
In the suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, the Hartford-based health insurer cited Abbott's December decision to raise the wholesale price for 120 100-milligram Norvir capsules from about $206 to $1,028.

Norvir was not a major AIDS drug on its own, but is increasingly used in small doses to boost the potency of some AIDS combination-drug therapies.

"By means of this staggering price hike, Abbott added drastically to the cost of regimens using Norvir to boost competing protease inhibitors," Aetna said in its lawsuit filed Tuesday. Protease inhibitors are drugs that block HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBVO6P4RUD.html

1028/206 = 499%

Hmm ... looks like Abbott knows exactly what it was doing.

--bkl

Let the corporations go at each other. The drug companies have been screwing the american consumer for far too long. Why is it that the rest of the world gets to enjoy the same drugs this country produces for a lower price? They claim that the largest expenditure comes form R&D, but if you look at their balance sheet you will see that it is actually marketing. Just turn on the television or read a magazine and you will find all their ads trying to turn everyone into a junkie...

and they leave the troops out of it?

But in the end who is going to foot the bill? Remeber that ridiculous case about Microsoft and IE back in 98? Who made the money on that debacle?