(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc. is not in talks with Chinese authorities to allow a generic version of its COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid to be used there, but is in discussions over the price of the branded product, it said on Monday. Managing Director Albert Bourla.
Reuters reported on Friday that China was in talks with Pfizer to secure a license that would allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of US company Paxlovid’s COVID-19 antiviral drug in China.
Referring to that report, Bourla, speaking at the JP Morgan healthcare conference in San Francisco, said, “We are not in discussion. We already have an agreement for the local manufacturing of Paxlovid in China. So we have a local partner who will manufacture Paxlovid for us. , then we will sell it to China market.
Pfizer has a licensing agreement with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) that allows 35 drugmakers around the world to manufacture low-cost versions of Paxlovid and provide the treatment in 95 poorer countries.
This license does not allow them to sell generic Paxlovid in China, where infections have increased since December, causing a severe shortage of flu and COVID drugs.
A box of Paxlovid, used for a single treatment, is changing hands for up to 50,000 yuan ($7,313), according to local media and social media posts, from the original price of around 2,000 yuan.
Bourla said the company shipped thousands of treatments in 2022 to China, and in the past two weeks that number had swelled to millions.
On Sunday, China’s Health Care Safety Administration (NHSA) said the country would not include Paxlovid in an update to its list of drugs covered by basic medical insurance plans because the company American cited a high price for the COVID-19 drug.
The drug is currently covered by China’s vast health insurance scheme under temporary measures until the end of March.
Bourla said talks with China about future prices for the treatment broke down after China asked for a lower price than Pfizer charges for most lower-middle-income countries.
“They are the second highest economy in the world and I don’t think they should pay less than El Salvador,” Bourla said.
The failure of talks to include Pfizer in the list of drugs covered by the state’s basic health insurance sparked heated discussions on Chinese social media on Monday.
Some Chinese media reported that Pfizer lowered the price of Paxlovid to 600 yuan during negotiations, sparking a flurry of criticism and questions on social media as to why Chinese regulators did not agree to the price.
A separate report by financial magazine Caixin on Monday cited unnamed sources as saying Pfizer had not lowered its price significantly beyond the 1,890 yuan it currently charges Chinese hospitals.
Pfizer declined to comment on Chinese media reports of the price it quoted during negotiations. The NHSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on the negotiations.
Chinese state media Global Times accused Pfizer of trying to profit from China’s COVID battle in an opinion piece on Monday.
“It is no secret that the forces of American capital have already amassed quite a bit of fortune in the world through the sale of vaccines and medicines, and the American government has coordinated from the beginning. there is no so-called human right, but a monopoly,” he said. . .
“If they care (the epidemic in China), why doesn’t Pfizer give up the pursuit of profit and cooperate with China with a little more sincerity?”
Bourla said the delisting would not affect the company’s operations there until April and the company may end up selling only to the private market in China.
Pfizer signed an agreement in August for Chinese drugmaker Zhejiang Huahai to produce Paxlovid in mainland China only for patients there.
Bourla said production was gearing up in China and progress had been made that could allow it to begin manufacturing in the first half of the year, ahead of its internal year-end estimate.
(Reporting by Michael Erman in New York, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Sophie Yu in Beijing; Editing by Miyoung Kim, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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