Cipla starts $1-a-day AIDS drugs exports

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Cipla starts $1-a-day AIDS drugs exports

MUMBAI

DRUGMAKER Cipla, which startled international drug

companies in February by offering to supply AIDS drugs

to the world's poor at $1 a day, on Thursday said it

had shipped the first batch.

Cipla joint managing director Amar Lulla said the

company had exported a small quantity of an AIDS

triple drug cocktail to Cambodia this week,

and was in talks to supply the drugs to Nigeria,

Zimbabwe and Cameroon.

" I am gratified the programme is moving, " he said.

The drugs are being supplied to international charity

Medecins Sans Frontieres at $350 per patient per year,

on condition that MSF supply them free to AIDS

patients.

The three drugs in the cocktail are stavudine,

lamivudine and nevirapine. The three-drug cocktail

costs $10,400 per patient per year in the United

States.

US giant Bristol-Myers Squibb has a patent on

stavudine, British major GlaxoKline the patent on

lamivudine and Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim the

patent on nevirapine.

Cipla announced in early February it would supply the

drugs to MSF at $350 and to governments at $600 per

patient per day.

The announcement irked large pharmaceutical companies,

with Glaxo chief executive J P Garnier calling Cipla a

pirate.

Cipla's announcement was followed by a string of price

cuts by multinational drug companies, which were

already under pressure to make their drugs more

affordable to poor AIDS patients in developing

countries.

GlaxoKline said in late February that it would

take steps to widen access to discounted AIDS drugs by

supplying medicines to non-profit bodies.

Bristol-Myers announced in mid-March it would supply

Zerit, the brand name for stavudine, and another AIDS

drug, Videx, at $1 a day to African AIDS patients.

Merck also unveiled price cuts for two AIDS drugs,

Crixivan and Stocrin, for developing countries.

(Reuters)

http://www.economictimes.com/today/13comp10.htm

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Moderator eFORUMAIDS Treatmentegroups

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