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Bird Flu Drugs
Cipla to make generic Tamiflu
Anita Jain from New Delhi
10/22/2005
Cipla, an Indian drugmaker, plans to roll out a generic version of TamiFlu, the patented drug produced by Swiss company Roche and used to counter the symptoms of deadly bird flu, in developing countries in three months.
"The whole world needs it and there is a tremendous shortage," said Amar Lulla, joint managing director of Cipla.
The Indian company could face a lawsuit from Roche, but does not plan to market the drug in Europe and the US, where it would be subject to stringent patent laws.
"We will sell it in many countries where there are no patents," he said, adding Cipla can sell the drug in countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. "We are not going to go into markets where there are valid patents." A deadly strain of bird flu that has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 was lately found in bird stocks in Turkey and possibly Romania, raising the spectre of a global flu pandemic.
Roche has rejected calls from the United Nations and several countries to license generic versions of TamiFlu.
The Indian company will offer a generic version called oseltamivir for prices below what Roche charges for TamiFlu. In the US, the drug costs US$60 per treatment.
Mr Lulla said the company would sell the generic drug at "humanitarian prices", although he declined to give a figure. The company, India's third-largest drugmaker, prices its cocktail of three generic HIV drugs at 50 cents a day. The same treatment costs thousands of dollars in the US. The company hoped it would not become entangled in a lawsuit with the Swiss pharmaceuticals company, but was prepared for it, he said.
In addition to selling HIV drugs, Cipla sells generic versions of many other popular patented drugs, such as Lipitor and Viagra.
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