Hetero Drugs, the Hyderabad-based manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished dosage formulations, has signed a joint venture with Russian pharma major Makiz Pharma. The companies would jointly produce low cost antiretroviral drugs (ARV) for HIV/AIDS in Russia.

Under this 50-50 agreement, Makiz would facilitate the existing drug manufacturing facility for production. On its part, Hetero would provide technology transfer to manufacture ARV products, Hetero Drugs said in a press release.

"The agreement has come after two years of active negotiations on acquisition of the modern technologies and transfer to Russia of the full cycle of generic ARV production, which will allow significantly lower the cost of these drugs in Russia," said M Satish Reddy, director of Hetero Drugs.

"The signing of this agreement is a very important step to significantly decrease the prices for a range of most important ARV drugs, and consequently treatment of a greater number of Russian patients with the necessary drugs," Nail Khamidullin, director general of Makiz said.

According to the company sources, the Russian Scientific and Methodological Centre for Prophylaxis and Fighting with AIDS, currently, put the number of the HIV-positive cases in Russia is at 4,00,172 people, including 3,252 AIDS sufferers and 229 children. The high price of the foreign medicines purchased by the government significantly limits the capabilities in medicine procurement with ARV medicines for all the patients. At present, only two Russian pharma companies produce ARV drugs, but their share in the total volume of sales of such drugs in 2006 was insignificant and totalled to less than 10 per cent.

Hetero has developed and implemented a Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) in the form of generic drugs, which facilitates reducing the costs of treatment. Currently, the company has 24 ARV drugs, including the generic drug Ritonavir, which will be produced in Russia by Makiz Pharma. The drug was included into the Russian standard of specialised medical aid to the HIV patients in December 2006. The drug was included as a non-branded generic drug under an international non-patented name.

According to company sources, the appearance of Ritonavir in Russia allowed to significantly decrease the cost of the HIV-positive treatment.

Khamidullin said that, "we see our mission in increasing the affordability of high-quality and effective treatment for Russian patients by producing of analogues of medicines, developed in the West, creating the full-cycle production on the basis of our facilities. Makiz will continue to do its best to procure Russian patients with affordable and high-quality ARV".