[Ip-health] India’s Cipla Is Bashed Over Prices Of AIDS Drugs

[Sarah Rimmington]

India’s Cipla Is Bashed Over Prices Of AIDS Drugs
http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/12/indias-cipla-is-bashed-over-prices-of-aids=
-drugs/

Posted: 14 Dec 2007 06:50 AM CST

criticize.jpgThe AIDS Healthcare Foundation is criticizing the generic
drugmaker over what it calls a “modest price cut” on three of its AIDS
meds. The reduction comes after a campaign to pressure Cipla to lower
its prices in India, but AHF says a huge gap of 150 percent remains in
the difference between what Cipla charges in India and Africa.

“A price cut of 5 percent to 15 percent is nowhere near enough to make
Cipla’s lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs affordable and accessible to all
Indians in need,” says Chinkholal Thangsing, Asia Pacific bureau chief
for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a medical provider based in New
Delhi. “We urge Cipla to make the dramatic price cuts necessary to
ensure that its own countrymen and women will benefit from the company’s
ability to produce cheap medicines – just as those in Africa and other
parts of the developing world have benefited.”

Of the 2.5 million people now estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in
India, only around 85,000 are receiving lifesaving antiretroviral
treatment, and the average income is far below what the cost of a year’s
supply of med, putting AIDS drugs out of reach of most Indians. The AHF
campaign, which began earlier this year with newspaper ads trying to
shame Cipla, prompted an investigation by the Monopolies and Restrictive
Trade Practices Commission, India’s anti-trust commission that probes
monopolistic, restrictive and unfair trade practices, over its possible
overpricing of Viraday.

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Sarah Rimmington
Attorney
Essential Action, Access to Medicines Project
Washington, DC
Tel: (202) 387-8030
Cell: (202) 422-2687
www.essentialaction.org/access/