In September[1], U.S. pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc.[2] 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.
The deal has been widely heralded as a success[3] since it has brought about collaboration between a U.S. pharmaceutical giant and Indian generic drug producers to manufacture and distribute a high-cost drug at an affordable price for citizens of a developing country. This is done at a time when Indian generic drug and U.S. branded drug companies have been in a battle over pharmaceutical patents.