Cipla seeks S African compulsory license: will AIDS be named national

Indian generic drugmaker Cipla has asked the South African government toprovide it with a non-inclusive compulsory license to enable it to supply the country with generic versions of eight brand-name HIV/AIDS treatments.

The company says that it has sought a compulsory license from the Registrar of Patents at the Department of Trade and Industry on the grounds that the antiretrovirals' multinational patent holders had abused the terms of their patents by not meeting demands for the products on reasonable terms.

The move comes as the multinational pharmaceutical industry's court challenge to South Africa's Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act of 1997, which opened March 5, was postponed until April 18 (Marketletter March 12) to allow the industry to answer statements made by the Treatment Action Campaign, an AIDS activist group which has now been allowed to join the court proceedings as an amicus curiae.