Hetero Labs to produce Gilead's HIV drugs, through Medicines Patent Pool

MUMBAI: Hyderabad based Hetero labs through an agreement with Geneva based Medicines Patent Pool will produce four key HIV drugs developed by Gilead Lifesciences. Hetero has received license for emtricitabine, cobicistat, and elvitegravir, and a combination of these four medicines, tenofovir, in a single pill known as the 'Quad'. Hetero will sell these drugs in in 100-112 developing countries, where Gilead currently has no patents for these drugs. Cobicistat, elvitegravir and the Quad are new drugs in development

"The terms and conditions that the Pool was able to negotiate represent an improvement on previous licences and this will enable us to make affordable drugs available faster to more people," said Mr M. Srinivas Reddy of Hetero.

Hetero is the fourth Indian generic company to pick up a licence from the Pool. Companies like Emcure, Aurobindo pharma and Medchem labs.

The Medicines Patent Pool is in negotiations with patent holders Behringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, F. Hoffman La Roche, and ViiV Healthcare [a joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer], as well as with several generic companies, to reach licence agreements that will help reduce the prices on several additional key HIV medicines.