Best known in this country for beating up Pfizer over its Viagra ads, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation today is launching a new campaign criticizing Ciplia, India’s biggest generic drugmaker, over the prices of its AIDS meds. The campaign kicks off with ads: ‘Profit at What Cost? AIDS Drugs for All’ in major Indian newspapers.

The organization, which operates clinics and pharmacies, has previously chastised brand-name drugmakers, such as Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb, over the same issue and promises to target India’s other generic drugmakers - Ranbaxy, Emcure, Aurobindo and Genex, according to an e-mail sent to journalists.

The group questions why Cipla’s AIDS meds cost far more in India - some more than twice as much - than what Cipla charges for the same meds exported to Africa. They cite Viraday, which is Cipla’s generic formulation of Atripla, an all-in-one antiretroviral treatment (ART) combo that sells for $13,44 per patient per year in India, but for $528 when exported to Africa, the groups say.

“Cipla’s corporate slogan is ‘None shall be denied,’ yet the price differences between Africa and India all but assure that many patients in need in India will in fact be denied access to Cipla’s lifesaving AIDS treatments,” says Michael Weinstein, AHF’s president. “We are asking Cipla to cut its price in India for Viraday down to the price it charges in Africa. Through this ad, we also want to make policy makers and the public-at-large aware of this striking inequity in Cipla’s pricing. As it stands now, it appears that Cipla’s pricing policies in India put profits before people.”

“I am saddened that Cipla charges two-and-one-half times as much in India as it does in Africa for its Viraday tablets, Cipla’s generic three-in-one combination antiretroviral therapy that patients have to take just once a day. This significant price difference contributes to the fact that far fewer Indians have access to such lifesaving AIDS therapies,” says Chinkholal Thangsing, Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who is based in New Delhi.

The print advertisement includes a quote from Cipla’s chairman from a June 2004 interview in the periodical, ‘Positive Nation.’ In it, Yusuf Hamied stated, “Pharmaceutical companies don’t price their drugs according to cost but rather to their market value. The customers for drugs in India cannot afford to pay high costs for drugs. So what’s the point of charging obscene prices?”