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Drug company’s loss could be Africa’s gain

5 January 2011

A very important patent decision may have just been made in Mumbai. Abbott Laboratories, one of the world’s biggest research-based drug companies, doesn’t like it – they are now considering what to do. But HIV/Aids campaigners are celebrating. The Mumbai patent office has rejected Abbott’s application for a patent in India on its drug Kaletra – a combination of the two antiretroviral medicines lopinavir and ritonavir.

Kaletra, say campaigners and doctors involved in the struggle against HIV/Aids in Africa, is crucial. When HIV becomes resistant to the cheap first-line drugs being rolled out, the cost of treating Africans will soar unless generic versions of the newer medicines that we use in Europe and the USA can be sourced.

Kaletra is one of those. When the basic drug cocktail stops working, doctors will want to put patients on Kaletra – or even better, its newer version Alluvia, which is able to withstand African temperatures without refrigeration.

Cheap versions of the drug have been made by Indian generics companies and are ready to be shipped. It was copycat manufacturing by generic drug companies in India which made the first-line drugs available in Africa – now they are as low as $79 a year. As more people are put on second-line drug combinations, those prices will come down drastically too.

The Intellectual Property Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK) has posted documents on the case here. Its director, Tahir Amin, hopes other big pharma companies will take heed and tell their lawyers not to seek new ways to gain or renew patents on drugs that are badly needed in poor countries.

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