In the wake of Cipla's announcement to cut its anti-AIDS cocktail drug prices by 39 per cent last week, Aurobindo Pharma and Hetero Drugs are likely to follow suit.
Indications are that the other players -- GlaxoSmithKline and Zydus Cadila -- may not cut their prices immediately.
Sources at Aurobindo Pharma said the company's management is firming up plans for a price reduction.
"We only made Cipla to reduce its price to match our price. We are the producers of bulk for all these drugs. Our work efficiency is better. We are committed to our initiative of making AIDS drugs available at an affordable price," Aurobindo executives said.
A senior official at Hetero Drugs said, "We are going to be the aggressive players in the HIV/AIDS drugs market. We feel that the price has to come down further to make it affordable to the patients on sustainable basis".
Hetero Drugs was the first company in the country to identify these therapeutics four years back, the official claimed.
It is the largest supplier of these drugs to South Africa and Argentina, where the cost of therapy has come down substantially.
Sector analysts said the move by Aurobindo Pharma and Hetero Drugs will not yield much as Cipla accounts for almost 80 per cent of the market share in India.
"Unless the AIDS market increases by sheer volume, it does not seem like Aurobindo will gain much. Cipla is clearly the market leader with almost 80 per cent of the market share followed by Glaxo," an analyst said.
GlaxoSmithKline, its officials said, has no intention to cut its AIDS drug prices. The company spokesperson said, "Lamivudine is a research based product and so our pricing strategy is obviously different. It takes $350 million to introduce a new molecule and this puts a heavy burden on the company. We cannot just reduce prices."
