Don't be cutting into Big Pharma's profits

AIDS is good for business.

NEW DELHI, Nov 26 (IPS) - As India moves to meet a New Year's Day deadline to comply with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the cheap, generic anti-AIDS drugs that this country is famed for could be a thing of the past.

On Nov.19, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical Hetero Drugs Limited, had voluntarily withdrawn all six of its generic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs from the world body's list of approved drugs following concerns about their laboratory tests.

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It was the third time since June that an Indian company has removed anti-AIDS drugs following WHO inspections which claimed that bioequivalence tests -- meant to show the drugs have the same effect as the original patented brands - were faulty. And this has deeply upset those involved in fighting the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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According to the internationally-known drug policy expert, Mira Shiva, the actual culprit in the whole debacle involving Hetero, Ranbaxy and Cipla was actually the WTO and not WHO.

Shiva who is attached to the Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), a leading health NGO, said Indian pharmaceutical companies that specialise in cheap generics drugs could face legal action, initiated by the WTO, if they continued to manufacture and sell them after Jan. 1, 2005.

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