The European Union has been pushing EU pharmaceutical companies to offer cheaper anti-AIDS to developing countries including China, European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy told AFP Monday.
Speaking on a visit to Shanghai ahead of a meeting with Chinese foreign trade minister Shi Guangsheng in Beijing, Lamy said: "We have been pursuing the idea of two-tier pricing for AIDS drugs for some time."
A major producer of anti-AIDS drugs, Merck Sharp and Dohme announced over the weekend that it would slash the Chinese prices of two drugs from this month.
The company signed an agreement with China's Ministry of Health to cut by two-thirds the price of Crixivan and Stocrin from the start of this month. Chinese media said the deal was "the result of long and intensive negotiations" between Merck and the ministry.
Lamy said that China's entry into the World Trade Organisation, which was finalised at the Doha WTO meeting last month, marked a "new era" in world trade talks, where developed countries were committed to showing less developed members that WTO membership was "about more than market access".
China's entry into the WTO was a milestone to show that developing nations had much to gain from trade liberalisation in terms of improving their regulatory framework -- Shanghai (AFP)
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