Cipla Ltd is expecting compulsory licensing rights from a few African countries including Kenya, it is learnt. The company already received its first compulsory licence from Malaysian government for supply of anti-AIDS drugs.

"The Malaysian experience should trigger off the African and other Asian countries for exercising their CLR under the Doha declaration. Kenya seems to be the next to grant CLR and Cipla stands the best chance to fetch a contract," said a close associate with Cipla.

Cipla is the first to receive such license under the paragraph 6 of the Doha declaration on TRIPS and public health. Under this provision of Doha declaration, countries can waive patent claims and source medicines from low-cost non-patent producers in case of a public health crisis.

According to pharmaceutical analysts in Mumbai, since governments of countries are granting CLR with support from Doha declaration, there is less likelihood of Cipla or for that matter any company receiving CLR facing litigations from MNCs.

Cipla during early 2001 had begun the shipments of anti-retroviral drugs to South Africa, at $ 350 per patient per year from the then existing $ 12,000. However, the company and the South African government had to face stiff legal challenges from the MNCs due to the absence of supportive provision for compulsory licensing like the Doha Declaration. Even though Doha Declaration took shape in November 2001, it was only in August 2003 in Geneva that the MNCs could conditionally agree with the CLR provision of the Doha Declaration.

The granting of future CLR would be on a case-to-case basis, which will vary from one country to another, said Sameer Narayan, an equity analyst at the Mumbai-based Enam Securities.

As per the UNAIDS statistics at the end of 2001, there were 28,500,000 people affected with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and 2.2 million deaths as a result of the disease. About 2.5 lakh or 15 per cent of the adult population in Kenya was HIV/AIDS affected. Botswana had 3,30,000 or 40 per cent of the adult population AIDS affected. Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe had 35 lakh, 50 lakh and 23 lakh AIDS affected population respectively.