SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil is threatening to break patents and start producing anti-AIDS drugs if the three pharmaceutical companies selling them to South America's largest country don't slash prices.

"The cost has to go down so we can treat the patients," Marcia Lage, a spokeswoman for the Brazilian Health Ministry's AIDS division, said Thursday. "If the price remains high, we'll start producing or importing the drugs."

Negotiations this month to lower the price of the AIDS drugs sold to the Brazilian government by Abbott Laboratories, Roche and Merck & Co. have failed so far to produce any meaningful price reductions, she said. The government wants a 50 percent price cut.

As a result, Brazilian Health Minister Humberto Costa issued an ultimatum to the companies: If no acceptable plan is received by Saturday, Brazil will start making generic versions of the drugs and explore the possibility of importing them.

Costa's predecessor issued a similar threat two years ago, convincing Roche to reduce the price of an AIDS drug by 40 percent.

The latest threat comes after World Trade Organization negotiators in Geneva reached a deal that would give poor countries better access to affordable drugs to fight disease like AIDS and malaria. The full group, however, delayed a decision on whether to support the measure.

International agreements have always allowed countries to break patents in times of national health emergencies, but that was little help for countries with no pharmaceutical industry to make the medicines. The new agreement allows poor countries to break patents and import generic drugs from other countries.

But Brazil can make its own drugs and its 1997 intellectual property law allows patents to be broken when companies employ abusive pricing policies.

Lage said a team of health ministry officials will travel to India Friday to determine if the drugs can be bought there cheaper than they can be made in Brazil. Brazil would have to pass a new law to allow importation of the drugs, and it is being drawn up now by Costa's office, she said.

In a statement, Illinois-based Abbott said it is "hopeful of a positive end to the current negotiations." Abbott added the price it has offered Brazil is the lowest in the world, outside of discounts given to Africa and countries designated least developed by the United Nations.

Merck spokeswoman Anita Larsen said the company is still waiting for a specific price cut proposal by the Brazilian government. It also offers Brazil its second-lowest price for AIDS drugs.

A Roche spokesman said the company already reduces the price of its drug for Brazil.

Brazil has one of the most successful anti-AIDS programs in the world, providing free anti-AIDS drugs to anybody who needs them. About 143,000 Brazilians have AIDS and about 70,000 receive antiretrovial AIDS drugs.

Brazil wants to reduce the price of the three drugs -- Lopinavir, Nelfinavir and Efavirenz -- because the government's cost for buying the drugs eats up 63 percent of its $172 million budget for antiretrovial AIDS drugs.

Abbott offered to reduce the price of Lopinavir, known in the U.S. as Kaletra, by 1.3 percent to $1.48 per dose, but Lage said the drug could be produced at a government-owned laboratory for 25 cents per dose.

Roche supplies Nelfinavir, which is sold under the brand name Viracept, costs 53 cents per dose but the drug could be made for 27 cents in Brazil, she said.

Merck supplies Efavirenz -- known around most of the world as Stocrin and as Sustiva in the U.S. -- for $2.10 per dose, and the drug could be produced for 87 cents, Lage said.

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