'Cipla, Tell the Truth'; AIDS Healthcare Foundation Launches New Ad Campaign

NEW DELHI, India, Sept. 6 As part of itsongoing global campaign to lower drug prices and improve access to lifesavingHIV/AIDS treatments worldwide, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has publisheda print advertisement in the form of an open letter that will appear inseveral prominent Indian newspapers today.

Headlined 'Cipla, Tell the Truth' this latest ad is scheduled to appear inthe Mumbai editions of The Indian Express and The Financial Express today andin the Delhi editions within a few days and follows a month-long publicdialogue regarding higher prices offered by Cipla for its generic HIV/AIDSdrugs in India vs. Africa. The controversy was sparked by an earlier drug-pricing advocacy ad placed by AHF in Indian newspapers in August. Headlined'Profit at What Cost? AIDS Drugs for All' the ad questioned a 150% pricedifference between what Cipla has offered African and Indian purchasers forthe same lifesaving antiretroviral medication. Spurred by AHF's allegations,the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC), India'santi-trust commission that probes monopolistic, restrictive and unfair tradepractices, recently began an investigation into Cipla's pricing practices.

"With this advertisement, we hope to put an end to the recent storm ofcontroversy pitting AHF and Cipla against each other and to re-focus thepublic dialogue on what is most important: the fact that Cipla's HIV/AID drugprices are simply too high in India," said Chinkholal Thangsing, M.D., AsiaPacific Bureau Chief for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a medical providerbased in New Delhi. "We also hope to refute baseless claims recently leveledat AHF regarding the motives behind our efforts to lower HIV/AIDS drug pricesin India and to increase access to lifesaving medicines. As a non-profitorganization with a twenty-year history of providing free medical care andadvocacy to people living with HIV/AIDS our commitment has been, is, andalways will be to the people we serve. We urge Cipla to end its attempts todivert attention away from the facts so that we can get down to the importantwork of saving lives."

AHF begins its open letter to Cipla by reiterating its original claim-which Cipla has yet to refute-that the generic manufacturer is offering manyof its HIV/AIDS medicines at significantly lower prices in African than inIndia: "The simple truth is that Cipla is charging too much for its drugs inIndia and its pricing is depriving Indians living with HIV/AIDS of access tolifesaving treatment ... Cipla is charging much more for anti-retroviral (ARV)drugs in India than they do in Africa."

A chart included in the ad compares the private price Cipla offers inIndia to the government or non-governmental organization price offered inAfrica and the private price offered in Uganda (where AHF operates freetreatment clinics). The results are startling: Cipla offers Duovir-N, acombination of three generic anti-retroviral drugs, for two times as much inIndia as it does in Africa and almost one-and-a-half times as much than inUganda. The price Cipla offers for Triomune, a combination of three genericanti-retroviral drugs, is three times as much in India as offered in Africaand two-and-a-half times as much as Cipla charges for the same drug in Uganda.Finally, the price Cipla offers for Efavir, a two-in-one anti-retroviralcombination, is three times as much in India as offered in Africa or twice asmuch than Cipla charges in Uganda. Bottom line: All three of these potentiallifesaving generic ARV combinations by Cipla are priced (or offered) at anaverage of two to three times less in Africa than they are priced (or offered)in India; as such, the steeper prices offered in India mean that fewer Indianscan partake in the lifesaving benefits of these Indian-made AIDS medicines.

The letter also answers baseless assertions about AHF's connections topharmaceutical compa