Key Points
New Delhi: Patent applications filed in India by a US pharmaceutical giant for an antiretroviral drugmeant to prevent Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infectionare facing stiff opposition from a number of Indian civil society organisations working to expand patients access to life-saving medicines...
They have claimed that these patents, if granted, could impede global efforts to end Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the most advanced stage of HIV infection, and hinder access to affordable generic versions of the medicine in India and several other countries...
The drug, lenacapavir, recently showed 100 percent efficacy in preventing HIV infection..
In June this year, findings from the PURPOSE 1 studytrial conducted by Gilead Sciences between August 2021 and June 2024 on women in South Africa and Uganda to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lenacapavir for HIV infectionhit global headlines after showing that the drug is cent percent effective in African women as a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which refers to a medicine used to prevent HIV infection...
Indian generic manufacturers have already developed the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), and have the capacity to file for quality assurance and mass-produce long-acting injectables of lenacapavir, Indian civil society organisations opposing the grant of patents said in the statement...
