The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is criticizing the generic drugmaker over what it calls a “modest price cut” on three of its AIDS meds. The reduction comes after a campaign to pressure Cipla to lower its prices in India, but AHF says a huge gap of 150 percent remains in the difference between what Cipla charges in India and Africa.

“A price cut of 5 percent to 15 percent is nowhere near enough to make Cipla’s lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs affordable and accessible to all Indians in need,” says Chinkholal Thangsing, Asia Pacific bureau chief for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a medical provider based in New Delhi. “We urge Cipla to make the dramatic price cuts necessary to ensure that its own countrymen and women will benefit from the company’s ability to produce cheap medicines – just as those in Africa and other parts of the developing world have benefited.”

Of the 2.5 million people now estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in India, only around 85,000 are receiving lifesaving antiretroviral treatment, and the average income is far below what the cost of a year’s supply of med, putting AIDS drugs out of reach of most Indians. The AHF campaign, which began earlier this year with newspaper ads trying to shame Cipla, prompted an investigation by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, India’s anti-trust commission that probes monopolistic, restrictive and unfair trade practices, over its possible overpricing of Viraday.