ISRAELI HEALTH MINISTRY COUNTERS LIPITOR MARKETING PLAN

Israel's Ministry of Health has announced that it opposes an arrangement between Israeli pharmaceutical company Unipharm and U.S.-based Pfizer to market the cholesterol-reducing drug Lipitor. According to the agreement, Unipharm was to have given consent to register a patent on Pfixer's Lipitor in Israel, in return for marketing the drug, instead of marketing its own generic version, Torid.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health commented that the agreement would "harm both consumers and health funds, who will have to continue using an expensive medication when a substantially cheaper, high quality generic version can be provided." The generic Torid would be available at a price 80 percent cheaper than that of Lipitor.

The ministry went on to say that "such an arrangement encourages companies to develop generic products and register them solely as bargaining chips in patenting rights. It will mean that we will end up wasting public resources on testing the quality, safety and efficacy of products whose manufacturers never had any intention of marketing them in the first place." Neither company offered an immediate response to the statement.