US biotechnology giant Gilead Sciences announced Monday generic licensing deals with seven Indian pharmaceutical firms to slash the cost of its $1,000-a-pill Hepatitis C medicine in 91 developing countries.
Gilead has come under fire from patient rights' groups for the cost of its Hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi, which in the US costs $84,000 for a total 12-week course of treatment.
"This announcement is a game-changer," Greg Alton, Gilead medical affairs executive vice-president, told AFP in New Delhi where the announcement was made.
"The great thing is we are making this medicine available to millions of people around the world," Alton said.
Gilead said the seven Indian firms to which it has licensed its Hepatitis C drug include Cipla, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Cadila Healthcare and Mylan Laboratories.
The Indian generic companies said it was too early to say what they would charge for the Hepatitis C medicine as they still had to review manufacturing costs.
But Gilead said it would make Sovaldi available in India for $300-per-month which Alton said could serve as a "benchmark" for pricing in developing countries.
Patients with Hepatitis C require three or six months of treatment with the drug depending on the strain of the virus.
In the United States, the Hepatitis C strain is usually treated with a 12-week course, while in India and some other countries strains are different, sometimes requiring a 24-week therapy regimen.
Treatment with Sovaldi is effective in nine out of 10 cases of liver-destroying Hepatitis C, according to the results of US clinical trials.
The agreement will allow the Indian companies to sell the chronic hepatitis medicine in India and 90 other developing countries where more than 100 million people are living with Hepatitis C -- representing 54 percent of the total global infected population.
Among the countries covered by the agreement are Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Vietnam.
But patients' rights groups said the announcement meant that Sovaldi was still out of reach of sufferers in middle- and-upper income countries who cannot afford the drug.
"We welcome the interest of generic companies to scale up production of new direct-acting anti virals," said Rohit Malpani, access campaign policy director at medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
The agreement which "blocks millions of people with Hepatitis C from affordable prices is not acceptable," Malpani said.
Alton said Hepatitis C is a major public health issue globally and "Gilead is working to make its chronic Hepatitis C medicines accessible to as many patients, in as many places, as quickly as possible".
Under the signed licensing agreements, the Indian companies will receive a complete technology transfer to "enable them to scale up production as quickly as possible," according to Gilead.
Hepatitis C is caused by a virus that can be transmitted through sharing needles, receiving contaminated blood transfusions or having sex with an infected person.
Some 350,000 people die of Hepatitis C-related liver diseases annually, and as many as four million people are newly infected each year, according to the World Health Organisation.
Most of the 185 million people infected worldwide do not know they have the disease, with diagnoses often only discovered after a person develops cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease or liver cancer.