Cipla’s drug gets on to US anti-AIDS initiative

Mumbai, Aug. 16

Cipla’s paediatric version of triple-combination AIDS drug Triomune can now be purchased by the $15-billion PEPFAR global-initiative to treat the illness. This follows the tentative approval that paediatric Triomune got earlier this week from the US regulatory authority, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Children below 12 years and infected with HIV/AIDS can now receive treatment under the initiative. It is the first fixed dose paediatric AIDS drug to get onto the PEPFAR programme, Mr Amar Lulla, Cipla’s Chief Executive Officer, told Business Line.

In 2003, the US President, Mr George W. Bush had mooted the President’s Emergency Programme for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) over a five-year period to tackle the illness.

Triomune is a fixed-dose tablet that combines three AIDS medicines — lamivudine, stavudine and nevirapine. Lamivudine is the generic ingredient in GlaxoSmithKline’s AIDS medicine Epivir, stavudine is Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Zerit and nevirapine is Boehringer Ingelheim’s Viramune.

contd on page 2...