Indian AIDS pill is effective

An inexpensive generic three-in-one AIDS pill from India is just as good as the more expensive branded medicines, according to recent research. Due to the lack of scientific evidence about the clinical effectiveness of such generic fixed-dose combinations (FDC), international AIDS donors have refused to fund their use. But a team from the French national agency for AIDS research and the Swiss charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, found that Cipla's Triomune drug did as well as the branded counterparts in the first such clinical study in a developing country. The researchers found that 80 percent of HIV-infected patients given the tablet twice a day had undetectable levels of virus in their blood after six months treatment. The study included 60 patients in Cameroon, 92 percent of whom had full-blown AIDS. It was found that the generic pill gave results comparable to those seen in the developed countries using triple-drug therapy comprising branded drugs. In addition to being cheaper, drugs like Triomune - which contains GlaxoSmithKline's lamivudine, Bristol-Myers Squibb's stavudine and Boehringer Ingelheim's nevirapine - are simpler to use since patients need to take only two pills a day. The WHO has judged Triomune and another Indian combination called Triviro, from Ranbaxy Laboratories, to be safe and effective under a scheme that 'prequalifies' them for use.

Washington has barred groups receiving U.S. government funds from buying such cheap drugs from developing countries, insisting on drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Worries about the quality of Indian medicines were fuelled last month when the WHO removed two Cipla products from its prequalification list because they had not been proven to be equivalent to the original products. In Cameroon, where drugs are subsidised by the government, the cost of one month's Triomune is $20, compared to $35 for the equivalent branded product, even after heavy discounting by big pharmaceutical companies.