Cipla to Meet with WHO on Discounted AIDS Drugs

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Cipla to Meet with WHO on Discounted AIDS Drugs

Copyright REUTERS.February 26, 2001

BOMBAY (Reuters) - Indian generic drug maker Cipla

said on Monday it would soon start talks with the

World Health Organisation (WHO) to supply inexpensive

generic versions of AIDS drugs to the world's poor.

Cipla startled the global drugs industry earlier this

month with an offer to the charity Medecins Sans

Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, to supply AIDS

drugs for less than $1 a day to the impoverished,

undercutting multinational drug firms.

``We heard from the World Health Organisation late

last week that they wanted to meet us on the AIDS

drugs offer,'' Cipla Chairman Yusuf Hamied told

Reuters. ``We expect a dialogue to be initiated very

soon.''

``We have also received letters from the European

Commission saying they want to know more about our

offer to (Medecins Sans Frontieres), and we believe

the (European Community) can fund international

agencies for the purchase of AIDS drugs where

required,'' he said.

Cipla is offering the triple-antiretroviral-drug

cocktail--comprising stavudine, lamivudine and

nevirapine--to Medecins Sans Frontieres at what

it calls a humanitarian price of $350 per person per

year.

Hamied said the international charity group was trying

to introduce Cipla's AIDS drugs in 10 African

countries and supplies to five of them could begin

``very soon'' as registration applications were being

fast-tracked.

US firm Bristol-Myers Squibb holds the patent on

stavudine in much of the world, Britain's

GlaxoKline has the patent on lamivudine and

Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim owns the patent for

nevirapine.

Cipla is able to manufacture the drugs because Indian

patent laws protect only the processes by which the

drugs are made but not the products themselves. This

allows Indian companies to copy products that are

under international patent, as long as they use new

processes.

Hamied played down talk that he was taking on

multinationals in African markets. ``We're not

interested in taking on multinationals,'' he said.

``We have no fight with anybody.''

Leading drug firms have negotiated discount deals of

60% to 90% with Senegal, Uganda and Rwanda under a

United Nations initiative, but their products are at a

premium to Cipla's offer.

Senegal pays $1,008 to $1,821 per year for the

combination therapy, according to Medecins Sans

Frontieres. The same drug cocktail would cost

$10,400 per year in the United States.

Cipla's offer to the charity is aimed primarily at

Africa, where antiretroviral drugs used in the West

are out of reach of virtually all the 25.3 million

people on the continent who are infected with the HIV

virus.

Cipla is also offering the drugs directly to African

governments at $600 per person per year, but Hamied

said no government had yet taken up the

offer.

Hamied played down the commercial impact of the deal

with Medecins Sans Frontieres, saying its total sales

of AIDS drugs would contribute only 2% to 3% of the

company's expected turnover of over 10 billion rupees,

or roughly $214 million, in the year to March.

Hamied said Cipla also planned to supply the

riple-drug AIDS cocktail at concessional rates to

Indian atients. ``We made an offer last November to

supply free drugs to treat mother-to-child AIDS

infections,'' he said.

``We should wake up to the reality that India adds

3,500 HIV-positive cases every day and that a recent

World Bank report says there will be 35 million cases

by 2005 in India, or 5% of the adult population,'' he

added. ``This makes something like the (recent)

earthquake in Gujarat look like a tea party. What is

happening today in Africa is likely to happen to India

in 10 years' time.''

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Moderator eFORUM AIDS Treatmentegroups