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US in talks with Bayer about relaxing Cipro patent

מתוך medicontext.co.il

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is talking to German drugmaker Bayer AG about relaxing its patent on Cipro (ciprofloxacin), which has become the drug of choice for those worried about anthrax, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Wednesday.

Asked on NBC's "Today" show whether he had asked Bayer to "turn the other way in terms of their patent and allow other countries to produce Cipro,'' he replied: "There's no question that discussions like that have been going on and will be going on."

Bayer said Tuesday it planned to more than triple production of Cipro, an antibiotic in the fluoroquinolone class, over the next 3 months to meet growing public fears about anthrax.

Thompson said he would ask Congress later on Wednesday for an extra $1.6 billion to boost US emergency drug stockpiles, including $600 million for more Cipro, the only US government-approved treatment for the inhaled form of anthrax.

"The administration will be asking Congress for funding to expand our anthrax antibiotics to enough to satisfy and to meet the needs for 12 million people," Thompson said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday night.

The US government currently has enough Cipro to treat 2 million people for 60 days. "We'll have doses for 10 million more people if Congress approves that request,'' Thompson said.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, proposed Tuesday that the government buy generic versions of Cipro for its emergency stockpile, pointing to a law that might allow the sidestepping of Bayer's patent. He said this could both reduce reliance on a sole supplier and significantly reduce costs. (See Reuters Health report, October 16, 2001.)

Cipro costs nearly $350 a month in the United States, while a generic drug from reputable suppliers in India costs only $10 a month in India, The New York Times reported Wednesday. But it said if the United States were to buy generic copies of the patented drug to deal with the national crisis, it could open the floodgates for poor countries that want to use generics to combat their epidemics of AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases.

Thompson said the government is looking at Schumer's suggestion and considering its legal implications. "At the present time, it does not look like we have the legal authority,'' he said in an interview on CNN.

But he said Cipro is not the only possible treatment for anthrax. Penicillin, he said on NBC, is cheaper and has been effective.

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