In September, U.S. pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc. entered into a licence agreement with seven Indian pharmaceutical companies (the licensees), allowing them to manufacture their own, lower cost, generic versions of Sovaldi, the Hepatitis C (HCV) drug patented by Gilead. The Indian companies on this unique initiative are CIPLA, Ranbaxy, Cadila Healthcare, Hetero Labs, Mylan Laboratories, Sequent Scientific and Stride Arcolab.