Four patents of AIDS drugs of Gilead

Source: Daily Economic News July 28, 2011 Gilead, the world's largest manufacturer of AIDS drugs, recently announced that it would put four drugs for AIDS treatment into the independent Swiss fund MPP (medicines patent pool) Many international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are cheered by this approach, because developing countries can supply the market with generic drugs at a lower price only by giving Gilead a lower royalty It has been revealed that 111 countries are expected to benefit from it But it is disappointing that as one of the most important developing countries in the world, China is excluded from the beneficiary countries According to industry analysis, Gillette's business interests may be the main reason why China is excluded Patent sharing looks beautiful Recently, MPP and un it aid, a purchasing agency that provides free drugs for the poor with AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, announced an agreement with Gilead, who agreed to put four drugs, including Viread and emtriva, cobicistat and elvite gravir, into the patent pool The drug patent pool was established at the end of 2009 to improve the access of AIDS drugs for developing countries through patent sharing Gilled was the first pharmaceutical giant to reach an agreement with the group Under the agreement, generics of tenofovir dipivoxil from Gilead and ntrastabine will be marketed in 111 countries Cobicistat and elvite gravir, as clinical candidate drugs, will be marketed in 102 and 99 countries respectively in the form of common name after being approved by the drug administration These four drugs are brand-name antiviral products, among which Viread is the main drug for AIDS treatment Viread was approved by the US FDA in October 2001 It can be used in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B in addition to HIV infection in adults and children over 12 years old Emtriva is an upgraded version of anti HIV lamivudine, with higher efficacy, better tolerance and lower adverse reactions Cobicistat and elvitegravir are new drugs in the field of AIDS treatment in recent years As part of the patent pool agreement, Gilead signed licensing regulations with four pharmaceutical manufacturers in India Four Indian companies produce patented drugs Gilead only charges a small amount of patent licensing fees, but strictly restricts the export places of generic drugs According to the supplementary provisions, some relatively developed developing countries, including China, are excluded from the beneficiary countries Hu Yuanqiong, a member of China's research group on drug accessibility, said Gillette's putting four drugs into the patent pool was "beautiful to look at" and could actually play a limited role The reason is that Thailand, China, Brazil and other countries with generic drug production capacity are excluded from the list, and the main listed countries are the least developed developing countries, which basically have no production capacity The China drug accessibility research group is composed of more than ten practitioners from international and domestic research institutions and NGOs who are concerned about China's drug accessibility For a decade, the team has been focusing on the field of drug patents, trying to lower the price of patented drugs so that Chinese patients can buy drugs at a cheaper price The practice of restricting exporting countries has made gilled opposed by many international NGOs In Latin America, more than 70 NGOs protested that it was discriminatory for producers to select and determine who would be rescued Jia Ping, chief executive of the Global Fund's observation program, said China's business interests may be the main reason for its exclusion The increasing population of AIDS in China makes the market of anti AIDS drugs have a huge space Viread can also be used for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, making its market space wider According to the statistics of 2010 national legal infectious diseases released by the Ministry of health, AIDS has become the number one killer among all legal infectious diseases In 2010, 7743 people died of AIDS, an increase of 16.79% compared with 6596 in 2009 By 2010, there are more than 10 million people infected with HIV and more than 1 million AIDS patients in China Reporters learned that for this huge market competition has begun Recently, a local pharmaceutical company, orette, filed a patent invalidation lawsuit against Viread of Gillette with the Patent Reexamination Board of the intellectual property office Gilead earlier sued the company for patent infringement It is understood that Viread of Gilead started patent registration in 1998 and successfully registered in 2008 However, the drugs are still imported in China, and the domestic drug registration procedure has not been completed Peng Zhien, chairman of Oread, said that the technical threshold for the imitation of Viread is not high Several domestic enterprises, including Oread, already have the imitation technology According to him, as early as 2003, the company began to research and develop Viread At present, there are no obstacles in the imitation technology According to Peng Zhien, the core active ingredient PMPA of Viread is a Czech patent in 1985, which has been published for a long time Gilead company only added some auxiliary absorption ingredients in addition to the core ingredient, and there is no major innovation, so it should not be granted a patent right The patent lawsuit initiated by Gillette aims to prevent other pharmaceutical companies from large-scale commercial promotion, so as to protect their own commercial interests.