The Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+) has submitted a pre-grant opposition to a patent application filed in the Kolkata patent office by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for Combivir, a fixed-dose combination of two essential AIDS drugs zidovudine/lamivudine. The opposition is based on technical and health grounds. The INP+ is represented by the HIV / AIDS unit of Lawyers Collective.

"We are objecting to the patenting of Combivir because it is not a new invention but simply the combination of two existing drugs. More importantly, the granting of such a patent risks increasing the cost of anti-retroviral treatment for many people living with HIV/AIDS thereby further increasing the burden on developing countries already struggling to treat patients," said K.K. Abraham, President of INP+.

Combivir is a widely used fixed dose combination and is used extensively in projects run by international aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Almost all the Combivir used by MSF is generic. India, Burkina Faso, Mongolia, Central African Republic, Malawi, Peru, the Republic of Kyrgizstan, Cambodia, Ukraine and Swaziland are other countries also identified by the Global Fund as using generic Combivir.

"Decisions made by Indian patent offices are a question of life or death for people living with HIV/AIDS who rely on the availability of affordable AIDS drugs and other essential medicines made by Indian generic manufacturers," explains Anand Grover, Director of Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit.

"Besides Combivir, there are other patent applications of essential medicines waiting to be approved or rejected, including other anti-retrovirals and drugs for treating mental illness, tuberculosis and opportunistic infections, " said Tahir Amin, an intellectual property lawyer with the Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum.