GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is doing battle with the Russian government over the price of HIV drugs. The government wants a 15% discount off it current pricing deal but GSK says that a price cut like that would simpley leave its margins too slim.

GSK has already cut its prices for the Russian market to help the country get more AIDS drugs into the hands of more patients. In 2006, it reduced the price of Combivir by 66%, Epivir by 75% and Ziagen by 56%. Slashing prices further is "clearly not sustainable nor appropriate if applied to middle-income countries," remarked Fabio Landazabal, GSK's general manager in Russia.

GSK has been reducing costs in emerging markets all over Asia but it claims that Russia's request would take prices "lower than required to support a viable business model."

www.gsk.com