Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Cipla launches three-in-one AIDS pill

Drugmaker Cipla Ltd said on Monday it had launched a three-in-one tablet to treat AIDS, the first combination medicine in the world of the three drugs stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine.

Cipla, which shot into international prominence in February by offering to supply a cocktail AIDS drugs for less than $1 a day, said in a statement a month's supply of the new pill, Triomune, would cost patients Rs 1800 ($38.21).

The statement said the price represented a five to six-fold reduction in the monthly cost of therapy.

The new product is the first combination of the drugs anywhere in the world basically because the patents on the three drugs are controlled by different companies.

Britain's GlaxoSmithKline holds the patent for lamivudine, Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim the patent on nevirapine and US drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb the patent on stavudine.

Cipla is allowd by Indian patent law to make drugs that are patented by other companies internationally as the law protects only the processes by which drugs are made, and not the drugs themselves.

This means Indian companies can make drugs under patent in the West, provided they use a process that is different from the original.

In February, the company offered to supply the three drugs to international charity Medecins Sans Frontieres for $350 per patient per year, a thirtieth of the US price.

Tell us what you think of this report