Manufacture of AIDS drug outsourced to Pune

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Manufacture of AIDS drug outsourced to Pune

BS Corporate Bureau | February 17, 2006 05:37 IST

The US drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb & Company has signed an

outsourcing agreement with the Pune-based Emcure Pharma to

manufacture and supply its latest HIV/AIDS drug in India.

With this agreement, Bristol-Myers will license and lend technical

expertise for its drug —Reyataz (atazanavir) to Emcure.

The Pune firm will also have a royalty-free licence to make and sell

the drug in India, the first such pact for a local generic drug

firm. Bristol-Myers is expected to lose market exclusivity for

Reyataz in 2017 in the US, EU and Japan.

The US company's move is part of its strategic decision to deal with

two generic drug makers to allow cheap versions of its latest AIDS

drug to be made in sub-Saharan Africa and India.

Though Brystol-Myers and Emcure had jointly planned to make a formal

announcement of this tie-up on Wednesday in India, it has been

postponed owing to technical reasons.

Bristol-Mayer is also signing with another generic manufacturer—

Aspen PharmaCare of South Africa. Aspen also will be granted a

royalty-free licence to Aspen to make and sell the drug in sub-

Saharan Africa.

A Brystol-Mayers release stated that the generic companies will set

their own prices in the local markets. Emcure sources were not

available for comments. Reyataz is a once-daily protease inhibitor,

a second-line treatment for AIDS for patients who stop responding to

first-choice drugs.

Atazanavir was approved in the US in 2003 for use in combination

therapy with other anti-HIV medicines. According to the company, a

full year's treatment with the drug costs about $8,700 in the US.

Protease inhibitors help suppress the HIV virus that causes AIDS.

The number of patients in the developing world taking first-line

anti-retroviral drugs increased after drug makers came under

pressure to improve access to drugs. But that has led to drug

resistance, creating the need for more expensive second-line drugs.

Some 2.4 million people died of HIV-related illnesses in 2005 in sub-

Saharan Africa, and some 3.2 million became infected with HIV.

South Africa has the world's highest caseload of HIV and AIDS with

some 5 million people infected in a population of 45 million. India

is home to the second-largest number of infections after South

Africa, with an HIV/AIDS population also of about 5 million.

In 2001, Bristol-Myers had announced that it would not prosecute

generic drug makers who violated its patents in order to supply its

HIV medicines in sub-Saharan Africa.

The company had also stated that the company would supply its HIV

medications at no-profit prices.

Bristol-Myers said sales of Reyataz, increased 27 per cent to $188

million in the fourth quarter of 2005.

http://us.rediff.com/money/2006/feb/17bs3.htm?q=bp & file=.htm