NEW DELHI: Activists in India are opposing US pharmaceutical major Gilead Sciences ' patent applications on HIV prevention drug lenacapavir , in a bid to make the ground-breaking treatment affordable for all. Lenacapavir, a very expensive drug, is not available in India and many other countries. If the Indian Patent Office clears Gilead's patent applications, generic drug makers in India will not be allowed to produce its affordable forms.
This week, the patent office is likely to hear the objections of Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust--a civil society organisation which works with people vulnerable to HIV- to Gilead's patent applications regarding lenacapavir which, if granted, will extend the company's monopoly over lenacapavir. Gilead has several patent applications in India on lenacapavir. Two of these applications, filed in 2020, seek patents on the choline and sodium salt of the drug lenacapavir.
Sankalp contends that Gilead's claims on the salt forms of lenacapavir are not innovative. It had opposed Gilead's patent applications in 2021 on the ground that the drug has a previously known compound. Indian patent law prohibits "evergreening", a practice by which pharmaceutical companies seek patents on routine modifications to extend their drug monopolies beyond the standard 20-year period.
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