Activists in India and Thailand are demonstrating in front of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) offices in India and Thailand to demand the withdrawal of its patent application in Thailand on Combivir, a fixed-dose combination of two essential AIDS drugs zidovudine/lamivudine.
Today the Indian public interest groups are protesting in Bangalore in front of the local GSK office against the patent application for Combivir. GSK has filed applications for a patent on Combivir in many developing countries affected by HIV/AIDS including India and Thailand, informed sources.
People Living with HIV/AIDS in India and Thailand are also appealing to the government to refuse the patent and have lodged a legal objection to GSK's patent application on the grounds that it is not a new invention but simply the combination of two existing drugs. "Simply combining two medicines does not constitute an invention, and therefore does not deserve a patent,'' explains Loon Gangte of Delhi Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
Combivir is a widely used fixed dose combination of zidovudine/lamivudine and is used extensively in the AIDS treatment programs of India, Thailand and other developing countries. GSK currently sells this drug in Thailand, under the trade name Combid (also known as Combivir), at almost six times the price of the generic version. It can be expected that if a patent is granted, the Thai Government Pharmaceutical Organisation will no longer be able to produce this generic version, and GSK's price can be expected to rise further in the absence of competition. In India many generic companies produce generic versions of the drug, which is used in the government AIDS treatment program and also exported to other developing countries who cannot afford to buy Combivir from GSK.
"GSK's patent application will do nothing to improve access to treatment," says Dr. David Wilson, Medical Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières in Thailand. "If the company is seriously concerned about people with HIV/AIDS in Thailand, it must withdraw its patent application immediately. Otherwise it is clearly putting profit over people's lives," he said.
"Patents create monopolies on drug manufacture and prevent the production of affordable generic versions of the same drug by local pharmaceutical companies. The manufacture of affordable quality generic versions of Combivir and other anti-retroviral medicines has allowed developing country governments to put more people on treatment and thus extend their lives,'' said Anand Grover, project director of the Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit.
"Generic antiretroviral drugs are the basis of life-saving antiretroviral therapy relied upon by more than 80,000 people with HIV/AIDS currently receiving treatment in Thailand, " says Wirat Purahong, chairperson of the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS. In India there are 5.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS many of whom receive generic drugs manufactured by Indian pharmaceutical companies under the national HIV/AIDS treatment programme.