US-based Gilead Sciences has extended its partnership with four domestic drug companies — Ranbaxy, Hetero, Matrix and Strides Arcolab — to produce and market three new HIV/AIDS drugs.
According to a company statement, the four companies will have the rights to manufacture and market generic equivalents of the products — Elvitegravir, an investigational integrase inhibitor, Cobicistat, an investigational antiretroviral boosting agent, and Quad, which combines four Gilead HIV medicines in a once-daily, single-tablet regimen. These drugs are in late-stage clinical development in India and other developing nations.
The licensees will receive complete technology transfer of the Gilead manufacturing process and pay royalty on sale of finished products.
The move is in line with an increasing trend among global multinational pharmaceutical companies to partner with Indian generic drug makers to sell low-cost versions of their patented products under license agreements.
Sun Pharma and Matrix, a wholly owned subsidiary of global generic major Mylan, had announced similar deals with global drug majors in the recent months.
Gilead’s original licensing agreements (in 2006) provided Indian manufacturers with non-exclusive rights to produce active pharmaceutical ingredient and finished product, and sell generic versions of its HIV medicines, Viread and Truvada, in 95 developing countries, including India.
The expanded agreements will also allow the sale of Viread and Truvada in an additional 16 countries, and Viread to be produced and sold for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B in the expanded territory. In April, Sun Pharma had inked a deal with US-based Merck & Co to sell the latter’s diabetes products, sitagliptin and sitagliptin plus metformin, under different brand names in India as part of a country-specific strategic partnership agreement. Sun and Merck had also announced a joint venture to develop and market new products in developing markets.
Last month, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced an agreement with Matrix Laboratories to manufacture and sell its HIV medicine Reyataz (atazanavir sulfate), stavudine and didanosine in sub-Saharan Africa and India.
