Indonesian government overrides patents on seven HIV and hepatitis drugs

In a move that was announced in early September but which just came to light last week, the government of Indonesia has issued an order overriding multinational drugmakers' patents on seven important drugs for the treatment of HIV and hepatitis B, allowing local drug companies to make cheap and affordable versions.

With a single decree, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has taken a quiet but exceptionally important step to expand access to medicines, potentially saving and improving the lives of tens of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B. If fully implemented, the measure will introduce widespread competition from generic versions of pricey brand-name drugs and generate major cost savings in the world’s fourth-most populous country, commented Peter Maybarduk, director of US patient advocacy group Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Program.

The decree licenses patents for a slate of HIV medicines, and represents one of the most robust uses of pharmaceutical patent licensing power by a country since the World Trade Organization 1995 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (WTO’s TRIPS), it was noted. The treatments that are subject to the orders are Merck & Co's Stocrin (efavirenz), GlaxoSmithKline's Ziagen (abacavir), Gilead Sciences' Viread (tenofovir), Abbott Laboratories Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir), Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Videx (didanosine), and Gilead's fixed-dose HIV combinations Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine) and Atripla (efavirenz/tenofovir/emtricitabine).