SOUTHERN AFRICA: Cipla’s exports of AIDS drugs increase after discount offer

Cipla, the Indian pharmaceutical firm that shook the global market last February when it offered to sell a generic three-drug AIDS therapy to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for an annual cost of US $350 per patient, said on Tuesday that it was exporting the drugs to a “dozen” countries, including Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Cambodia, and is in talks to expand its sales to other African and Southeast Asian nations, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Sales of AIDS medications could increase to more than US $20 million a year if the South African government approves the company’s request to export its drugs there, Cipla Chair Yusuf Hamied was reported as saying.

He did not reveal the company’s current sales figures for HIV/AIDS medications, but said that it is “gratifying that anti-AIDS medicines are finally beginning to reach those who need them desperately.” The three-drug combination contains lamivudine, nevirapine and stavudine, whose patents are owned by GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Indian patent law applies only to the process used to make drugs, allowing generic drug makers like Cipla to produce patented medicines by retooling the production process. Cipla’s offer, prompted some drug makers such as Bristol-Myers and Merck to offer developing nations additional price reductions. Last month, Cipla announced the reduction of prices of AIDS drugs in the country for the fourth time in the past nine months. The company lashed the prices by 39 percent.

For more information on Cipla go to: http://www.cipladoc.com/publications/aidswatch/aidsupdate.htm

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