[Ip-health] Reuters News Service: Generic AIDS Pill Gets Patent in Africa

[thiru@cptech.org]

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108967571968761861,00.html?mod=world_news_whats_news

Generic AIDS Pill Gets
Patent in Africa

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
July 13, 2004; Page D3

BANGKOK, Thailand -- India's Cipla Ltd., a pioneer in supplying cheap
generic AIDS drugs in Africa, has patented a three-in-one combination
tablet called Triomune in South Africa, in a move that will surprise many
industry watchers.

The company is also seeking patents on the product in 17 other countries
in Africa, the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic.

Cipla confirmed the move on Monday after the patents were uncovered by
people familiar with the AIDS situation attending the 15th International
AIDS Conference in Bangkok.

"The patent has been granted in South Africa...This is our invention,"
Amar Lulla, Cipla's joint managing director, said in Bombay.

Triomune contains copies of three drugs -- GlaxoSmithKline's PLC's
lamivudine, Bristol-Myers Squibb's stavudine and Boehringer Ingelheim's
nevirapine -- which are themselves still under patent protection. Cipla
argues its scientists found the way to put them together to produce the
combination pill, which needs to be taken only twice a day.

Tracy Furey, a spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers, said in response: "Since
2001, Bristol-Myers has said that it will not let patents prevent an
inexpensive HIV therapy like stavudine from reaching people in sub-Saharan
Africa. ...So we would not pursue patent infringement cases in sub-Saharan
Africa."