New Delhi: Patent applications filed in India by a US pharmaceutical giant for an antiretroviral drug—meant to prevent Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection—are facing stiff opposition from a number of Indian civil society organisations working to expand patients’ access to life-saving medicines. They have claimed that these patents, if granted, could impede global efforts to end Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the most advanced stage of HIV infection, and hinder access to affordable generic versions of the medicine in India and several other countries. The drug, lenacapavir, recently showed 100 percent efficacy in preventing HIV infection.
Developed by California-based pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences, lenacapavir was approved in the European Union (EU) and the US in 2022 for drug-resistant AIDS, and is available under the brand name Sunlenca. It is administered as a twice-yearly injection. Lenacapavir has garnered attention for its potential in HIV infection prevention, as shown by multiple clinical trials demonstrating superior efficacy of the drug compared to standard oral preventative medicines.
In June this year, findings from the PURPOSE 1 study—trial conducted by Gilead Sciences between August 2021 and June 2024 on women in South Africa and Uganda to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lenacapavir for HIV infection—hit global headlines after showing that the drug is cent percent effective in African women as a pre-exposure prophylaxis (P.