News

Bayer cuts price of ciprofloxacin after Bush threatens to buy generics

BMJ 2001; 323 doi: 10.1136/bmj.323.7320.1023 (Published 3 November 2001)
Cite this as: BMJ 2001;323:1023.1

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

  1. Fred Charatan
  1. Florida

    The Bush administration has won a major price concession from the German drug company Bayer AG for its antibiotic ciprofloxacin (Cipro), after threatening to buy generic alternatives.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had recommended ciprofloxacin as the antibiotic of choice for both inhalation and cutaneous anthrax (MMWR Weekly 2001;50:917-8(tables 1 and 2)), although this week it changed its advice, and decided to recommend doxycycline.

    Dr Bradley Perkins, an anthrax specialist at the CDC, was quoted in the New York Times (2001;Oct 30: B8) as saying that the centres were now recommending doxycycline because drug resistance was “less of an issue with doxycycline.”

    Before the new advice was issued, however, Bayer …

    Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment

    Subscribe

    Article access

    Article access for 1 day

    Purchase this article for £20 $30 €32*

    The PDF version can be downloaded as your personal record

    * Prices do not include VAT

    Rapid responses

    THIS WEEK'S POLL

    Read related article

    See previous polls

    BMJ most popular