NEW DELHI, July 2 (AFP) - Third world pharmaceutical companies are unapologetic about cloning Western anti-HIV drugs and selling them cheaply, believing they have a pivotal role in the battle against AIDS in developing countries.
Generic bulk drug makers even enjoy the backing of their governments in Thailand, South Africa and India, much to the ire of European and US pharmaceutical giants who claim their bottom lines are being hurt.
Thailand's health ministry came close to a patent showdown with US pharmaceutical giants after it began selling its own locally produced antiretroviral drug in April last year at less than a dollar a day.
Thailand's Government Pharmaceutical Organisation ignored patents to produce an HIV inhibitor, GPO-VIR, which comes in pill form and combines the strengths of the popular triple-drug cocktail of Stavudine, Lamivudine and Nevirapine.
"Ultimately, the objective is to ensure every needy patient in Thailand has access to anti-retroviral HIV drugs," said Sombat Thanprasertsuk, director of Thailand's AIDS bureau.
"This is humanitarian work. Without drugs, how can patients survive?"
Thailand is not alone. Indian firms announced last year they would slash the costs of AIDS drugs to 38 US cents a day for the triple-drug regimen needed to inhibit the disease.
The drugs are now being distributed in India, which has the second largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS -- 4.58 million against South Africa's five million.
Thanks to the Indian drug makers, the cost of the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), credited with reducing deaths in the United States and India, has plummeted in the past year, according to respected British medical journal Lancet.
The treatment which earlier cost thousands of dollars can now be bought from Bombay-based Cipla and other generic companies for less than 250 dollars a year.
In a further boost, research published in The Lancet now suggests that a single dose of the three copycat drugs is as effective as the expensive triple cocktail of branded drugs.
It is the first clinical scrutiny into whether the much-trumpeted single-tablet generic tritherapy is safe and effective.
Cipla launched the first generic antiretroviral drug, Zidovudine, in 1994. It has since launched 10 antiretroviral drugs and is scathing of allegations of counterfeiting made by Western pharmaceutical giants.
"What is the issue at stake? How long will they milk patents? They have been selling AIDS drugs in patented markets for decades. What is important -- a patient's life or a mere patent?" asked Amar Lulla, joint managing director of Cipla.
"Their allegations stem from the fact that they are unable to sell AIDS drugs at the price at which we are selling them."
Lulla added that Western pharmaceutical firms had had no compunctions about keeping AIDS medication expensive in their home markets for decades until they sensed competition round the corner.
"They follow differential price strategies. They sell the same AIDS drugs at a stiff price in their home markets in the US or Europe while they sell them cheap in Canada, Portugal or Spain," said Lulla.
"Now we are offering cheaper versions which is frightening them."
A Bombay-based official at British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) argued that "copycat" pills ate into profits and in the long-term strained research budgets.
"We invest billions of dollars in research and these generic drug makers just copy our pills and sidestep patents by re-engineering the process of manufacturing the pills," he said.
"By robbing us of our magic moment after years of product development they will kill medical research."
Ayanda Ntsaluba, director general of South Africa's foreign trade, said his government was looking to India for "practical solutions" to tackle AIDS and was in talks with firms like Cipla, Ranbaxy and Matrix, which produce the cheapest AIDS drugs in the world.
"We've encouraged private pharmaceutical companies in India and South Africa not to restrict themselves only to AIDS drugs although that's the main focus," said Ntsaluba.
The issue of cheap generic treatments is expected to be one of the focuses when experts convene in Bangkok from July 11 to 16 for the 15th International AIDS Conference.
"If you really want to treat millions of people in resource-poor countries, then there is going to be no other solution than having branded companies and generic companies working together to meet demand," conference co-chairman Joep Lange said last month.
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